
Class ]~ 

Book_ 
Copyright N 




COPYHIGHT IJIiPOSlT. 




GEORGE WASHINGTON 



HALF-HOURS 



IN 



SOUTHERN HISTORY 



BY 



JNO: LESSLIE HALL, Ph. D. 

Professor of English and of 
General History in the 
College of William and Mary 




B. F. JOHNSON PUBLISHING CO. 

ATLANTA RICHMOND DALLAS 



I LIBRARY of CONGRESS" 
Two Copies Received 

APK 16 1907 

i A .Copyright Entry 

class A. kxc, m. 



Fzcf\ 
.Hi7 



Copyright, 1907, 

By B. F. JOHNSON PUBLISHING CO. 

All rights reserved. 



■r, 



^.^ 



PREFACE 



This is a book of sketches and might be entitled, A Sketch 
Book of Southern History. It aims to give in brief outline the 
salient features of Southern heroism and achievement, and to 
state rapidly the South's side of the long controversy between 
the sections. 

The author has tried to be fair, candid, and truthful. Ex- 
tremists of either section will not like the volume. The fact 
that he is a Southerner, however, the author will attempt 
neither to palliate nor to deny ; but he has aimed to write "with 
malice toward none, with charity for all." 

The facts stated in this volume have been gathered from a 
thousand sources ; none have been manufactured. Of Southern 
civilization, the author speaks from experience, as he remem- 
bers vividly two generations that represented the Old South 
so-called. The work is a labor of love ; its object, justice to all. 

Williamsburg, Va v March 31, 1907. 



CONTENTS 



Illustrations 13 

CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

The South in Olden Days 15 

"before the war" 15 

no "solid" south 17 

"there is glory enough for us all" 19 

roanoke island, st. augustine, and jamestown. . . 21 

"sic semper tyrannis" 2j 

Harvey and Berkeley 27 

George III and His "Friends" 30 

Taxation Without Representation 30 

"Treason ! Treason !" 33 

VIRGINIA AND CAROLINA 36 

Tea Parties 36 

Mecklenburg and St. John's Church 41 

INDEPENDENCE 44 

1772 and 1775 44 

The Year 1776 46 

THE SOUTH IN THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION 5 1 

Heroes and Heroines 51 

Maryland •. 51 

Virginia 52 

North Carolina 59 

South Carolina 63 

Georgia 68 

Heroes of the Frontier 71 

[7] 



HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 



PAGE 

Troops and Battles 72 

Miscellaneous 74 

THE SOUTH AND THE CONSTITUTION 78 

The Federal Convention of 1787 78 

The States Create the Union 83 

THE SOUTH'S PART IN MAINTAINING AND EXPANDING 

THE UNION 86 

The War of 1812 86 

The Mexican War 90 

Miscellaneous 96 



CHAPTER II 

PAGE 

The Homes That Made Heroes 98 

"truth is mighty and will prevail" 98 

the south's history written by her enemies. ... 99 

tired of hearing him called "the just" io4 

culture and refinement 105 

manliness and self-reliance i08 

"OLE MARSTER" Ill 

"OLE MISTIS" 114 

THE PLANTER CIVILIZATION 1 16 

THE CAVALIER AND THE PURITAN II9 

THE YEOMANRY OF THE SOUTH I23 

TRUTH, PURITY,, AND PIETY 126 

SLAVERY IN THE SOUTH I3I 

THE FEUDAL BARON I34 

THE "LAZY" PLANTER I38 

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN AND OTHER SLURS I42 

"OF THE OLD SCHOOL" I44 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER III 

PAGE 

The Hundred Years' Wrangle 146 

early causes of estrangement i46 

Lights and Shadows 146 

Views of the Constitution 150 

The League or Compact Theory 150 

The Partnership View 153 

Federalists and Anti-Federalists 156 

LATER CAUSES OF ESTRANGEMENT 1 58 

THE GREATEST CAUSE OF ESTRANGEMENT 1 02 

Slavery in the North and the South 162 

The North Sells Out 165 

Who Did Sin? 167 

"The Higher Law" 173 

A New God Demanded 174 

The Plot Thickens 175 

The Last Straw 179 

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION l8l 

New England Pioneers of Secession 181 

Late New England Secessionists 185 

Nullification in the North 189 

"the war" 192 

CHAPTER IV 

PAGE 

The Private Soldier and the Sailor 197 

the real hero 197 

WHO ? I98 

WHY ? 199 

"gideon's band" 200 

mr. roosevelt explains 201 

"wearied out by their own victories" 203 

the soldier's joys 204 

"what is life without honor?" 205 



10 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

CHRIST IN THE CAMP 2.0J 

"pirates" 208 



CHAPTER V 

PAGE 

The Women of the Confederacy 215 

the truest patriots 213 

wives and mothers of heroes . 214 

the recruiting officer 2l6 

"the uncrowned queens of the south" 217 

"stitch, stitch, stitch" 219 

"gallant black tom" and treacherous isaac 221 

war poets of the south 222 

"starvation parties" 223 

"a ministering angel thou" 225 

CUPID AND "GENERAL LEE's SOCKS" 226 

A STARVING NATION 227 

THE "TRIUMPHAL MARCH" THROUGH GEORGIA 23O 

THE WOMEN DECLINE TO SURRENDER 232 

HEROINES IN HOMESPUN 234 

HER MONUMENTS AND HISTORIES . 236 

CHAPTER VI 

PAGE 

Lee and His Paladins 240 

LEE GOES WITH HIS STATE 240 

THE HALL OF FAME 24I 

"MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND" 244 

MARYE'S HEIGHTS AND CHANCELLORSVILLE 245 

"ALL THE WORLD WONDERED" 247 

GRAPPLE OF THE GIANTS 250 



CONTENTS 11 



CHAPTER VII 

PAGE 

Jackson and His "Foot-Cavalry" 253 

"poor white trash" 253 

jackson's political views 254 

"stonewall" 255 

the true stonewall jackson 257 

the thunderbolt of war 260 

CHAPTER VIII 

PAGE 

Shiloh and Its Heroes 262 

the hero of texas 262 

"freedom shrieked when kosciusko fell" 263 

"common errors" 264 

CHAPTER IX 

PAGE 

The South Since the War 266 

a prostrate nation 266 

the wolf at the door 268 

the hounds of peace -. 270 

the reign of terror 272 

the freedman's bureau 274 

the schoolmarm in tradition 275 

reconstruction through destruction 2y/ 

the carpetbagger and the scalawag 280 

the third triumvirate 282 

the ku klux klan 285 

reconstruction by the southern people 287 

the race problem 2qt 

morals and religion 297 

zaccheus is coming down 3 qi 



12 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

CHAPTER X 

PAGB 

Conclusion - 305 

Recapitulation 305 

Patriotism 307 

Index 311 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Opposite 
Page 

george WASHINGTON (frontispiece) 

JOHN MARSHALL l6 

PATRICK HENRY 32 

THOMAS JEFFERSON 48 

JAMES MADISON 80 

JAMES MONROE , 96 

ANDREW JACKSON I28 

JEFFERSON DAVIS l6o 

HENRY CLAY 176 

JOHN C. CALHOUN I92 

J. E. B. STUART 208 

JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON 224 

R. E. LEE 24O 

T. J. JACKSON 256 

ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON 264 • 

N. B. FORREST 288 



[13-L B] 



Half -Hours In Southern History 

CHAPTER I 

THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 
I 

''Before the War" 

ALL our lives, we have heard about the times "before 
the war," and this is a familiar phrase among our 
people. "The war" is an era with us of the South- 
ern states. Our fathers and grandfathers have told 
us, around the old fireside, of the good days they saw be- 
fore the terrible clash between the sections. "Before the 
war," "during the war," "since the war" — all are house- 
hold expressions south of the Potomac. Not even the war 
with Spain has robbed us of these phrases; the war of the 
'6o's is still "the war" among our people. 

"Before the war" — that was a joyous era with our be- 
loved people. Not altogether blissful, to be sure, — for life 
is never that — but bright, happy, and hopeful. Of course 
our fathers had their troubles and disappointments; life, 
even then, had its sunshine and its shadows ; but their sun- 
shine was brighter than ours, and the day was longer. 

They had a beautiful old civilization, and their homes 
were refined and comfortable, many of them elegant ; while 

15 



16 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

friends true as steel thronged around them, ready to enjoy 
their boundless hospitality and to return it on a lavish and 
open-handed scale. 

In political affairs, the South was vastly better off than 
it is to-day, far happier in the Union, not only recognized, 
but trusted with leadership for several decades. Her states- 
men had a prominent part in the conduct of the govern- 
ment, more than three- fourths of the presidents before i860 
being men of Southern birth or of Southern antecedents. 

Opportunities being given, the South gave the Union 
many of its greatest soldiers. Still others were sprung from 
families that had recently migrated from her borders to 
found new commonwealths beyond the Ohio. Immediately 
you think of George Washington, Francis Marion, Light 
Horse Harry Lee, Daniel Morgan, William Henry Har- 
rison, Zachary Taylor, and Andrew Jackson, whose names 
will be ever famous in the military annals of our earlier 
periods. 

"Before the war," no impassable gulf yawned between 
North and South. Of course there was some unpleasant- 
ness ; indeed, at times, some bitterness. Various questions 
arose, and some of them made New England threaten at 
times to leave the Union, so as to get away from her South- 
ern sisters. This, however, generally "blew over," as we say, 
and did not keep Southern men from being called to high 
and honorable places in the government. How is it now in 
this so-called "era of good feeling" ? What high and honor- 
able places does any president give your father or any of 
your relatives ? What Southern gentlemen are sent to repre- 
sent the United States at the courts of any great European 




JOHN MARSHALL 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DATS 17 

nation? How many Southern vice-presidents have been 
elected in your day? What party in your state wishes to 
push some eminent man of your state for the presidency, and 
thus blight his political career forever ? 

Why is this? Why is the South thus isolated, cut off 
from the rest of the Union? Why this "Solid South" that 
you read about so often in the newspapers ? It is on account 
of "the war" and of the problems that have resulted from it. 
The causes of this war and the nature of some of these 
problems we shall talk over in the following pages. We re- 
gret that such talks are necessary. We regret that, after 
forty years of peace, the South's side is so generally mis- 
understood, is so inadequately treated in many books and 
in the schoolroom. Whatever the reasons for this, it is high 
time for Southern teachers to be up and doing. The youth 
of the South must be told the true story of Southern her- 
oism, of Southern genius, of Southern fortitude, and must 
b taught, clearly and fully, why the South left the Union 
that she did so much to create and to make illustrious. 

II 

No "Solid South" 

"The Solid South" is a phrase born within recent years. 
It is the child of war and bitterness. We love to think of 
the days when there was no such phrase in our language and 
no such fact in our history. Local jealousies and sectional 
animosities have, of course, existed from the earliest periods 
of our history, but they were not bounded by the Potomac 
2 



HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 



river. No surveyor's line, no river, separated two great un- 
friendly sections of our country; that is comparatively re- 
cent. The North voted enthusiastically for numerous 
Southern presidents. The North called Washington twice 
to the head of the American army and twice to the presi- 
dential office. She called Marshall to the Supreme Bench, 
and has put him among her idols. More recent alienation 
between the sections is unnatural and unnecessary. If Vir- 
ginia and New England disliked each other during the early 
days of our history, so did New York and New England ; 
Connecticut and Pennsylvania. To-day, however, the 
South is in many respects almost cut off from the Union, 
almost as little connected with the Federal government as 
Korea or Madagascar. 

Not so was it in the revolutionary and ante-bellum eras. 
Did Adams and Ellery and Roger Sherman and Rush and 
Franklin go off in a corner and act without the advice of 
the Southern delegates? The answer rises to your lips: 
"No; they worked hand in hand with the great patriots of 
the South, and wrote their names alongside those of Carroll, 
Wythe, the Lees, Jefferson, Rutledge, Middleton, John 
Penn, George Walton, and other men whose fame can never 
perish." 

Who was called to lead the armies of the young nation 
in its fight for independence? Did sectionalism place the 
sword in weak and impotent hands ? No, those were better 
days than ours; for we have seen a Fitzhugh Lee, gallant 
chevalier and statesman, left to play soldier, clean camps, 
administer capsules, in the swamps of Florida, when he 
should have been leading the armies of his country to the 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 19 

walls of Havana. We have seen the same distinguished man 
assigned an insignificant part in the government of Cuba 
after that island came under the care of the United States. 
Our forefathers, however, saw a better sight. They saw 
John Adams, of Massachusetts, urge George Washington, of 
Virginia, as commander-in-chief of the American army, and 
saw a throng of New England people shout applause, as the 
great son of Virginia accepted his sword under the Cam- 
bridge elm, on the soil of Massachusetts. They saw such 
great Northern soldiers as Anthony Wayne and Nathaniel 
Greene follow the Virginian to victory under the same ban- 
ner as Marion, Sumter, and Pickens of South Carolina; 
"Light Horse Harry" Lee, Hugh Mercer, Andrew Lewis, 
and Daniel Morgan, of Virginia; Francis Nash and Wil- 
liam R. Davie, of North Carolina; Joseph Habersham, of 
Georgia ; John Sevier and Isaac Shelby, heroes of the fron- 
tier. 

"Give us back the ties of Yorktown! 

Perish all the modern hates! 
Let us stand together, brothers, 

In defiance of the Fates; 
For the safety of the Union 

Is the safety of the States ! " * 

III 

"There Is Glory Enough for Us All* 

In drafting the constitution, also, men of the North and 
of the South stood shoulder to shoulder. Just as they 



♦James Barron Hope, Yorktown Centennial poem. 



20 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

risked their "lives," their "fortunes," and their "sacred 
honor" together, so they sent their greatest men to consult 
together as to the kind of government they should form for 
themselves and their posterity. 

Of the details of the constitution of 1787, we shall speak 
more fully in a later section of this chapter. Here we may 
pause for a few remarks by way of introduction. A South- 
ern state, Virginia, led the way in calling for a convention 
to frame a constitution for the thirteen free and independ- 
ent states. It was Madison and Washington, of Virginia, 
who saw more clearly than almost any other men north or 
south that the young nation just cut loose from England 
needed a strong government to keep it from falling to 
pieces at home and from being despised abroad. Along 
with these patriots, we should mention Alexander Hamilton, 
the brilliant statesman of New York, and both Madison and 
Hamilton are often spoken of as "the fathers of the con- 
stitution." Another great man of that era was John Jay, 
afterwards chief- justice. When we think of the constitu- 
tion, we cannot fail to think of Washington, whose personal 
influence alone induced many men to vote for the great paper 
that was ready in September, 1787, to be submitted to Con- 
gress and to the several states for adoption. In all these 
details, we see clearly that the great men of all sections 
worked hand in hand for the general welfare. Neither sec- 
tion can claim all the glory; the "honors are even." 

In the foregoing sentences, we have seen in generous 
emulation men from both sides of the Potomac. Again, in 
the convention that drafted the constitution, we find, be- 
sides several already mentioned, Rufus King, of Massachu- 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 21 

setts; Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, Robert Morris, 
and Gouverneur Morris, of Pennsylvania; John Dickinson, 
of Delaware ; and Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, standing 
shoulder to shoulder with Daniel Carroll, of Maryland ; Ed- 
mund Randolph and George Mason, of Virginia; Hugh 
Williamson and William R. Davie, of North Carolina; 
Abraham Baldwin and William Few, of Georgia ; John Rut- 
ledge, Charles and Cotesworth Pinckney, of South Carolina. 

IV 

Roanoke Island, St* A« gustine* and Jamestown 

A great poet tells us, "The poetry of earth is never dead." 
This means that the poetical in life, in the universe, appeals 
incessantly to humanity, and that, as long as man has sor- 
rows to bemoan and joys to cheer him, the poet will be 
needed to inspire and console him. 

Not all poetry is written in words, and clothed in rhyth- 
mical language. If there are, as Shakespeare says, "ser- 
mons in stones," there are also poems in places, in great 
events, and in the great ideas that thrill mankind. There 
is something thrilling, something too deep for utterance, 
welling up within us as we look at the "old gateway" and 
the "ivy-mantled tower," coming down to us as relics of 
antiquity. He who has no such poetry in his soul, though 
he may not be quite "fit for treasons, stratagems, and 
spoils," lacks that imagination which givt * to life and to 
travel "the glory and the freshness of a dream." 

With romance and poetry, our Southern past is glorious. 



22 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Carolina has her Roanoke Island, associated with the name 
of Walter Raleigh, whose whole career is wrapped in ro- 
mantic glamour. It is the glory of the South that this great 
chevalier and soldier stands in the forefront of her history. 

Of Roanoke Island you have read in your histories. Here 
was made the first English settlement in the New World; 
and "the lost colony of Roanoke" is the most pathetic ro- 
mance in our history. The word Croatan carved upon that 
tree will be the sad enigma of the centuries; and myriads 
of children yet unborn will wonder whether the settlers were 
murdered by the savages, died of starvation, or perchance 
were adopted into some tribe of Indians. 

Another sacred shrine is St. Augustine, Florida. All 
Americans love to visit the old town and look at its ancient 
gateway. It was on this spot that the white man made his 
first permanent settlement in America, and, though the re- 
lations between the Spaniards, whose ancestors planted this 
town, and the race to which we belong have not always been 
pleasant, we feel a solemn thrill as we think of the time 
when the great white race to which we both belong first 
planted a home on this mighty continent. 

Still dearer to us of English blood are the ruins of James- 
town. The feelings that stir our hearts as we stand under 
the shadow of the old tower are too deep for utterance, and 
we almost beg to be left alone with our awe and our solemn 
meditation. 

Whence those deep feelings, those unutterable emotions? 
It is the reverence for antiquity, the lofty sentiment that 
raises us above the brute creation. Misers are not without 
it; hard-hearted lovers of the "almighty dollar" cannot re- 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 23 

sist it ; and hundreds, if not thousands, of the richest in our 
-land visit that spot every year, tread reverently its sacred 
sward, read the inscriptions upon its old tombstones, and 
hear in imagination the echoes of the old bell that used to 
call the fathers of America to the house of worship. 

Dear to every American should be that now deserted 
island. Proud should Virginians be that they are cus- 
todians of that shrine with its sacred memories; for it was 
on that spot, on the 13th of May, 1607, that the first per- 
manent English settlement in America was made. There 
the first English home in America was established; there 
Reverend Robert Hunt, the first English minister in Amer- 
ica, read the new liturgy of the reformed Church of Eng- 
land, and under a spreading canvas, with the green sward of 
nature as his carpet, "sang the Lord's song in a strange 
land." Its tower no longer rings with the reverberating 
peals of holy bells, calling to meditation and to prayer. 
Only the dead are there. All is in ruins. Yet we feel, as 
we stand in those sacred precincts, that the poet* was right 
when he said, 

"Yes, give me a land that has legends and lays." 

What other section has a Pocahontas? Others here 
and .there have a kind Indian woman shielding the whites 
from treachery and cruelty; but Pocahontas, "the Princess 
of the Forest," the daughter of kings, the mother of states- 
men that have been and that are to be — she will ever stand 
alone, unique, on the canvas of history, inspiring the artist's 
brush, the historian's pen, and the poet's lyre. 

•Father Ryan. 



24 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

The saving of John Smith by Pocahontas may some day 
be proved a myth by historians. With the people, however, 
the great masses, who love everything romantic and poetic, 
Pocahontas will forever bend over Smith, between him and 
the club of the cruel Indian, and save him from the bloody 
death that hangs over him. Maidens, too, will ever sigh 
over the love affairs of Pocahontas, and drop a tear of sym- 
pathy. They will think how cruel it was that she should be 
told that Smith had died in England and that, believing this, 
she had listened to the wooings of Rolf e, while her own 
"dear Captain" was thinking of her in England far away. 

Why is the year 1619 immortal in our annals and why is 
the date July 30, 1619, mentioned with rapture and with rev- 
erence by our historians? The same lofty sentiment ex- 
plains it. It is the inborn respect for antiquity, the reverence 
for what is venerable in our history. Because in that year 
and on that day, there met, in the church at Jamestown, the 
first American Congress, the first body of lawmakers that 
ever came together on this continent, and there and then 
the twenty-two burgesses, or representatives, of Virginia, 
with an independence and an earnestness never surpassed 
and rarely equalled, discussed some of the most important 
questions that ever engaged the attention of a legislative 
assembly of any people. 

Possibly, "state pride" might lead the present writer to 
exaggerate the importance of this great assembly: let us 
hear what John Fiske, of Massachusetts, says of the charter 
under which this assembly met: "The Magna Charta of 

Virginia hardly second to any other 

state paper of the 17th century." This is from a Northern 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 25 

historian, fair to the South generally, but not especially- 
anxious to glorify any section other than New England. 
John Esten Cooke, the Virginian, says of this same assem- 
bly, "The event was a portentous one. The old world had 
passed away, and the new was born." 

And these first American lawmakers were worthy of the 
day. They took up the greatest subjects that ever engaged 
the attention of a legislative body. They passed on the 
rights of certain men to seats in the assembly, that is, on the 
eligibility of some of their own members ; discussed the dan- 
gers arising from cruel Indian neighbors ; discussed agricul- 
ture, their main source of support; made laws in regard to 
the church, which was then an established or state church; 
and took steps to found a college for the education of their 
sons, thus making the South the pioneer in the higher edu- 
cation of America.* 

This same assembly petitioned the London Company at 
home to grant them authority "to allow or disallow of their 
orders of court, as his Majesty hath given them power to 
allow or disallow our laws." This is the claim of local self- 
government. It sounds the first note of the great contention 
between local self-government and outside interference, the 
contention which fired the eloquence of Patrick Henry in 
1765, flashed from the sword of Washington ten years later, 
and nerved the arm of Lee and his heroes in the great war 
for Southern independence. 

Two years later, another great idea was planted in Vir- 
ginia. Sir Francis Wyatt was sent from England as gover- 

•In this connection we may state that the first female college in the world was estab- 
lished in Macon, Georgia. 



26 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

nor, and brought with him a "formal grant of free govern- 
ment by written charter/' "the first charter of free govern- 
ment in America" (1621). 

The South, then, was the cradle of American civilization. 
If Thanet is dear to all Englishmen as the place where their 
fathers first set foot upon the soil of England, if Athens is 
proud of her Acropolis and loves every foot of its great 
rock, every American must feel a thrill of awe and of sa- 
cred rapture, as he treads the verdant sward of Jamestown 
and thinks of the day when the Susan Constant, the God- 
speed, and the Discovery cast anchor off that green penin- 
sula, and the great Anglo-Saxon race planted its first home 
on the new continent. 

In concluding this chapter, let us go back for a moment 
to our text which is taken from the verses of a great poet 
who said that his name was "writ in water," but who, be- 
cause he believed that the poetry of earth was never dead 
and has. taught others to believe it, is now numbered among 
the immortals. Yes, in this practical, money-loving age, we 
need more than one Keats to help us "hitch our wagon to 
a star." 

However, there are still many that feel the poetry of 
earth. Even wealthy stockbrokers and porkpackers some- 
times find poems in places. Some would buy the shrines of 
the South and ship them to Chicago. Shall we sell the tower 
of Jamestown? Shall a syndicate have it and move it to 
Cincinnati ? What rich young university shall buy the poet- 
ry and, the glory of old William, and Mary College? 
When shall we auction off the old gateway at St. Augustine ? 
Would Carolina sell King's < Mountain for its weight in gold 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS ' 27 

and silver? Shall the tomb of Washington be moved from 
Mount Vernon to some Northern city where more may visit 
it? 

"There is grandeur in graves, there is glory in gloom," 

sings one of our heartbroken poets ;* and he knew it all by 
experience. He sang out of a full heart. He had stood by 
the ruins and had sat by the graves. He tells us, in his own 
language, what Keats had already sung, that "the poetry of 
earth is ceasing never;" but that, as with other forms of 
beauty, "its loveliness increases, it will never pass into noth- 
ingness." 

V 

"Sic Semper Tyrannis" 
(i) HARVEY AND BERKELEY 

In resisting tyranny, also, the South may claim priority. 
Her sons have always loved freedom and hated tyrants. 

In the histories of Virginia, you have read a good deal 
about "the thrusting out of Sir John Harvey." This was, 
we may say, a "bloodless revolution." 

Harvey was the governor of Virginia, sent out (1629) 
by. Charles I, king of England, and was a worthy disciple 
of his tyrannical master. Besides being a tyrant, Harvey 
was unprincipled in money matters, "robbing the treasury 
and trying to sell lands belonging to individuals." The Vir- 
ginians 1 called an Assembly "to hear complaints against the 

♦Father Ryan. 



28 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Governor;" and "On the 28th of April, 1635," as the old 
record quaintly puts it, "Sir John Harvey , thrust out of his 
government, and Capt. John West acts as Governor till the 
King's pleasure known." After a short contest with the 
people of ^ irginia, Charles yielded, and Harvey vanished 
into nothingness. 

About forty. years later, the Virginians again rose up in 
rebellion. This time, they were armed, and ready to play 
sic semper tyrannis with an orchestra of gun and cannon. 
We refer of course to Bacon's Rebellion. 

For. many years, the Virginians and the New England 
colonists had had grievances against England. The Navi- 
gation Acts, first passed in 1651, were pressing hard upon all 
the colonies, compelling them to ship their tobacco, and other 
produce to England in English ships, prohibiting them from 
purchasing manufactured goods from any country but Eng- 
land, and from trading with each other in any article of 
importance. This meant ruin and starvation to our colonial 
fathers. 

In 1673 came something still more galling. In this year, 
"the merry monarch," Charles II, to reward two of his 
favorites for their valuable services — probably for telling 
smutty jokes well or for inventing new pleasures — granted 
them "that entire tract of land and, water commonly called 
Virginia," to have and to hold for thirty-one years. This 
was practical confiscation. 

In 1676, came the straw that broke the camel's back. The 
once-popular and beloved governor, Sir William Berkeley, 
had grown peevish and tyrannical in, his old age, and was 
afraid to give arms to the Virginians, for fear they might 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 29 

use them against him and his royal master. When the In- 
dians rose up in 1676, Berkeley refused to grant a com- 
mission to a brave and eloquent young planter who wished 
to lead his people against the Indians. After parleyings and 
wranglings between the followers of Berkeley and of the 
young planter, Nathaniel Bacon, civil war broke out, and 
hundreds of men fought on each side. Suddenly Bacon died 
of a fever, and the "rebellion" ended. His grave is un- 
known to this day. He was buried secretly, so that Berke- 
ley might not "hang, draw, and quarter" the dead rebel, as 
he no doubt intended to do. 

History settles accounts strictly with men like Berkeley. 
They go down to oblivion "unwept, unhonored, and un- 
sung." So with the once-honored and courted vice-regal 
governor of Virginia. His name is rarely mentioned save in 
scorn or in contemptuous pity. At his home near Williams- 
burg, no traveler drops the tear of love or heaves the sigh 
of admiration. Bacon, on the contrary, is honored in Amer- 
ica. Northern and Southern writers unite in singing his 
praises. Monuments are even now going up to perpetuate 
his memory; and, by a strange freak of fortune, his name 
has been given , to the post-office recently established at 
Greenspring, the old home of Berkeley. 

Bacon, then, is the first American . rebel against armed 
tyranny. His faithful lieutenant, Thomas Hansford, is the 
first American martyr to liberty. Well may Virginia cher- 
ish the memory of such sons ! Well has she earned the right 
to blazon sic semper tyrannis upon her scutcheon, — that 
motto under which her sons have fought under rebels whose 
fame grows brighter with the ages. 



•5 / 

30 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 



If Virginia had her Harvey and her Berkeley, New Eng- 
land had her Andros, and North Carolina her. Tryon. Only 
in the matter of priority did Virginia have v the advantage of 
her sister colonies; for it was not till 1651 that the people 
of Boston rose up against Andros, "the tyrant of New, Eng- 
land," and shipped him back to old England ; ^and, in 1771, 
some of the brave men of the "Old North State" rose up 
against the infamous Tryon and fought against him at the 
river Alamance. 

Probably no one thing did more to bring on the Revolu- 
tionary movement than the conduct of several of these royal 
governors like Andros, Tryon, and Dunmore. In selecting 
such men, England showed herself perversely blind to her 
own interests and indifferent to those of her colonies. It 
would seem that America had to be free, and that "offenses 
must needs come;" but , "woe to him by whom the offense 
cometh." 

(2) GEORGE III AND HIS "FRIENDS" 

(a) "TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION" 

In judging England for her treatment of our colonial 
ancestors, we must remember that she was no worse than 
other nations. The relation between colonies and the 
mother country is far more pleasant now than in earlier 
periods of modern history. In the eighteenth century, colo- 
nies were supposed to exist entirely for the benefit of the 
mother country; the idea of mutual benefit was hardly 
dreamed of except by a few statesmen, who were regarded 
as political dreamers. 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 31 

These facts will help us to understand why the English 
parliament frequently reenacted the Navigation Laws, and 
made them harsh and galling. This of course produced hard 
feeling against the mother country. Moreover, our ances- 
tors resorted to all kinds of means to evade the Navigation 
Laws ; and thus many of our people got into the bad habit 
of taking the law in their own hands — which, if not checked, 
will ( undermine the foundations of government, and ruin 
any race or nation. 

English people often say that American children are 
taught to hate England. If so, it is the fault of the books 
and the teachers. Whatever indignation we may justly feel 
should be directed rather against George III and his advis- 
ers, his ministers, as we call them. Even then, however, we 
should remember that George had a constitutional tendency 
towards insanity, and that he was not always responsible. 
Moreover, he k had bad advice, bad teachecs, from his very 
boyhood. His mother, for instance, was a highstrung wom- 
an, and brought him up with the idea that he must "be 
king;" and in 1760, at the age of twenty-five, he tried to 
rule according to the methods of the Stuarts, one, of whom 
had been beheaded (1649), and another driven into exile 
(1685). 

In studying about the American Revolution, furthermore, 
we should know something about the parliaments of that 
period. In our day, parliament is a representative body. 
It is elected by the great mass of English male citizens. It 
knows the wishes of the people, and is governed by public 
opinion. In George's day, . a handful of freeholders elected 
members of parliament. Prominent landholders gave away 



32 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

seats, and left them in their wills to their sons and others. 
You can see, then, that England was an oligarchy, and that 
the masses had little voice in the government. 

The king, too, had far more power than at present. His 
personal sovereignty was vastly greater. He could intimi- 
date parliament and browbeat his cabinet, both of which 
things George did habitually. 

In spite of all that we s have said, however, the English 
people must bear a part of the blame. They fired up angrily 
when they heard that America was defying England. They 
thought they ought to stand by the government, just as 
many of us Americans think in regard to matters of our day. 
"My country, may she ever be right, but right or wrong, 
my country" — this is the feeling of a great number of pa- 
triotic men in all ages. 

"Taxation without representation" was a popular politi- 
cal phrase of the pre-revolutionary era. Used by the elo- 
quent James Otis, of Massachusetts, it spread throughout 
the colonies. It was a popular but vague phrase. Its real 
meaning depends upon the meaning of "representation." 
Many Englishmen said , that the Americans had as much 
representation as a large number of people in England. 
Some in both countries thought that America , should have 
actual representatives in parliament; but many others 
thought that this was impracticable. What the colonists 
really wanted was taxation by their local assemblies; and 
this was what George III vehemently refused them. So 
the long quarrel continued. "The irrepressible conflict" be- 
tween the mother and the daughter ^was drawing nearer. 
The bitterness engendered in those days and in a later pe- 




PATRICK HENRY 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 33 

riod is gradually passing away; and ( it is to be hoped that 
the present century will see the two great Anglo-Saxon na- 
tions bound by indissoluble ties of love and amity. 

(b) "TREASON l TREASON I" 

Two years after James Otis, another great orator of revo- 
lution stepped into the arena. This was Patrick Henry, 
the "tongue of the Revolution." In 1763, he made 
his famous speech in the "Parsons' Cause" at Hanover 
Courthouse, Virginia, voicing the pent-up feelings of his 
countrymen against George III and his advisers. 

In 1758, the tobacco crop having , failed, the Burgesses 
had enacted that all debts payable in tobacco, then a species 
of currency, might be paid in .money at the rate of two 
pence a pound. In 1763, tobacco being very scarce and very 
high, some of the vestries, in settling with the parsons, fell 
back upon this "Two-Penny Act," though it was virtually 
repudiating two-thirds of the salary of the minister. The 
matter might have been settled peaceably between the clergy 
and their people if the king had not meddled, in order to 
use his "prerogative," as he called it. In the suit of the Rev. 
James Maury against his vestry, the latter engaged Patrick 
Henry, an awkward and ungainly-looking young lawyer, 
to protect their interests. He criticized the clergy so bitterly 
that those present left the courthouse in mingled fury and 
dismay. He launched such thunderbolts of wrath at 
George III, that the leading counsel for Mr. Maury said to 
the court that he wondered how the justices could tolerate 
3 



34 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

such treasonable language. The jury gave the parson one 
cent damages instead of several hundred dollars. It was 
really a verdict against the king for interference. 

This trial has become famous in history. It was really 
the ; case of the people of Virginia against George III, and 
"the first formal defiance" hurled by America at England, 
savs Fiske, the Massachusetts historian. 

Two years later still, came the Stamp Act (1765). Of 
Henry's speech in Williamsburg, we need not speak in detail 
in this volume ; it is described in all your histories. To pay 
a stamp tax on all legal papers, contracts, wills, newspapers, 
lawyers' licenses, pamphlets, and various other written and 
printed matter, was annoying and burdensome ; but the main 
thing, as already intimated, was the principle. Our fathers 
were willing to be taxed by their own assemblies, but not by 
a parliament across the ocean. When the blood is hot, rea- 
son becomes clouded. Soon the phrase "no taxation with- 
out representation" became "no legislation without repre- 
sentation" — which meant of course that the colonists would 
shake off allegiance to England, if the men using that phrase 
should take the leadership. 

Henry's speech on the Five Resolutions made an epoch. 
"Virginia rang the alarm bell," says a Northern writer. 
"Virginia gave the signal to the continent," wrote Gen- 
eral Gage, the British commander. Virginia, however, 
was divided; on one side were the "big wigs" and aristoc- 
racy; on the other, the yeomanry, led by Patrick Henry. 
The vote was very close; and the morning after the House 
of Burgesses voted and adjourned, one of the boldest reso- 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 35 

lutions was found to have been torn from the secretary's 
record. 

All students of history have doubtless heard of Peyton 
Randolph. He was a member of the House of Burgesses, 
and rushed out crying, "I would gladly give five hundred 
guineas for another vote." What could he have meant? 
Not that he wished to buy a vote ; for that, though common 
in England at that time, was not dreamed of in Virginia. 
He of course meant that, if he could honorably do so, he 
would gladly pay this large sum to vote twice ; for, by so do- 
ing, he would produce^ a tie, and leave the decision to the 
Speaker, who would vote against the five resolutions. Nine 
years later, this same Peyton Randolph was one of the 
leaders against George III and his ministry. 

Virginia was the most, fearless of the colonies. No other 
had taken so bold a stand on the Stamp Act. Some had 
protested before the act was passed; but, after its passage, 
there were no signs of resistance until Henry threw down 
the gauntlet. Even James Otis declared the Five Resolu- 
tions treasonable, and said that America must submit. The 
action of Virginia gave new nerve and boldness to the other 
colonies. Massachusetts suggested a Congress of all the 
colonies. This body, representing nine colonies, met in New 
York, October 7, 1765. The most enthusiastic response to 
the call came from South Carolina ; and one of the leading 
spirits of the Congress was her representative, Christopher 
Gadsden, "the learned scholar," the "broad-minded man of 
rare sagacity and most liberal spirit," a man too little no- 
ticed in American history, but destined to shine brightly 
when history is written fairly and accurately. Virginia was 



36 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY. 

not represented. Her House of Burgesses was prevented 
from meeting, being dissolved by the royal governor, 
Francis Fauquier. 

This Stamp Act Congress, under the leadership of Liv- 
ingston, of New York, and Gadsden, of South Carolina, 
adopted a series of resolutions echoing the spirit of those 
offered by Henry in the Virginia legislature, and addressed 
memorials to the king and to both Houses of Parliament. 

Nine years later (1774), came the famous Continental 
Congress, so called to distinguish it from the Provincial 
Congress of several colonies. "The first call came from Vir- 
ginia;" the first session of this Congress opened September 
5, 1774; and the first president was Peyton Randolph, of 
Virginia. The South was nobly represented in these bodies. 
In the first, sat John and Edward Rutledge, of South Caro- 
lina; Samuel Chase, of Maryland; Edmund Pendleton, 
Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, and George Washing- 
ton, of Virginia. An eminent Northern historian, in nam- 
ing the most prominent members, selects twelve, — the above 
seven, with five distinguished sons of New England, New 
York, and Pennsylvania. 

VI 

Virginia and Carolina 
(1) TEA PARTIES 

The Stamp Act was to go into effect November 1, 1765. 
When that day came, bells were tolled, business was gen- 
erally suspended, and flags were raised at half-mast. When 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 37 

the stamps arrived, they were seized and burned. The 
stamp officers resigned. Lawyers agreed to consider un- 
stamped documents legally valid. The woman of the colo- 
nies wore homespun cloth for clothing; English goods of, all 
kinds were boycotted; the whole continent had risen in un- 
armed rebellion. 

English merchants sent petitions for a repeal of the Stamp 
Act. Pitt and Burke, two great orators of parliament, op- 
posed the law in the House of Commons. Pitt said, "I re- 
joice that America has resisted." On March 18, 1766, par- 
liament repealed the Stamp Act, but asserted its right to 
"bind America in all cases whatsoever." This of course 
stirred the colonists to fury. 

Shortly after this, an act was passed forbidding all trade 
between the colonies and certain West India islands. This 
greatly angered the New England colonies. 

In 1767, were passed the Townshend Acts, laying duties 
on glass, lead, colors, paper, and tea. Then troops were sent 
over to see that these laws were executed, and, by the 
Quartering Act of 1765, our fathers were required to shelter 
and feed these soldiers. This monstrous demand led ( 1770) 
to the famous "Boston Massacre." 

Meanwhile, the policy of boycotting went on. The noble 
women of the colonies showed their patriotism by boycott- 
ing tea. The Boston Tea Party is cool compared with some 
tea parties in which tea was conspicuous by its absence. 
Prominent ladies of Carolina "resolved" that they would 
not touch the tyrannical weed. A young lady of Williams- 
burg, Virginia, declined to drink tea with Lord Dunmore at 



38 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

a reception, and was warmly rebuked by him as a hot-headed 
scion of a fire-eating sire. 

For refusing to shelter and feed the British troops, the 
New York assembly was forbidden to pass any laws. For 
its bold conduct, the assembly of Massachusetts was dis- 
solved by order of the king. This body used to adjourn to 
Faneuil (Funel) Hall, afterwards called the "Cradle of 
Liberty." The Virginia House of Burgesses, when dis- 
solved for its boldness, used to meet in the old Raleigh 
Tavern, so famous in colonial and revolutionary history. 

What Grenville and Townshend could not do to anger 
the colonists, Lord North succeeded in doing. From 1768 
to 1782, he and George III together left no stone unturned 
to alienate our fathers from the mother country. 

Troops were sent to Boston to see that the Townshend 
Acts were enforced. In the state of feeling that existed, 
fights between the soldiers and the citizens were bound to 
occur. The most famous of these conflicts is the "Boston 
Massacre," which occurred March 6, 1770, and in which 
four citizens were killed and several wounded. 

Meanwhile, the colonists were boycotting British goods of 
almost every kind. Agreements were made all over the 
country not to import goods of British manufacture. All 
were boycotted because of the principle of "taxation with- 
out representation." "Tea," about 1773, became a war cry 
of rebellion. 

The Boston Tea Party of December, 1773, is famous in 
history. The boldness of a party of Bostonians who dis- 
guised themselves as Mohawk Indians and emptied more 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 39 

than three hundred chests of tea into the harbor, has been 
well chronicled by sons of New England. Not so well 
known, however, are the tea parties of Charleston, Annap- 
olis, and other Southern towns and cities. It was in the 
same month in which the Boston Tea Party . took place that 
the people of Charleston refused to buy or to handle the 
hated stuff, and the tea was left to moulder in the cellars 
where it was stored. In October, 1774, Annapolis gave her 
entertainment, the brig Peggy Stuart with her cargo of tea 
being publicly burned by citizens of that once-loyal town of 
Maryland. 

These acts cannot be fully justified. Our fathers of that 
era were sometimes swept off their feet by passion and ex- 
citement, just as we are in our day ; but their hearts were in 
the main right, and their occasional lawlessness must be for- 
given if not justified. 

All those bold acts infuriated King George and his hench- 
men. Instead of trying to appease the Americans, they pour- 
ed oil on the flames. To punish the colonists, they passed 
the "Intolerable Acts," the worst of which closed up the 
port of Boston, thus paralyzing business and threatening 
starvation to thousands. This helped to unify the colonists ; 
and the cry, "The cause of Boston is the cause of us all," 
rang from Georgia to New Hampshire. South Carolina 
sent 200 barrels of rice; North Carolina, $10,000 in money; 
Virginia, money and resolutions of sympathy. At a meet- 
ing of the freeholders of Fairfax county, Virginia, Maj. 
George Washington, the hero of Braddock's campaign, gave 
$250 to the poor of Boston, and offered to march 1,000 men 
at his own expense to resist English tyranny. 



40 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Meantime, North Carolina had poured out the first blood 
of the Revolution. In the spring of 1771, some of her brave 
sons rose up against the tyranny of Tryon, the royal gover- 
nor, and at the river Alamance, on May 16 of that year, 
North Carolina patriots shed the first blood spilt in armed 
conflict between England and her colonies. The line, how- 
ever, was not yet very closely drawn between the parties; 
for on Tryon's side fought Col. Richard Caswell, after- 
wards so famous as a patriot leader. The two hundred 
killed and wounded were American martyrs to liberty, and 
their names should be recorded on our annals. 

Two years after this, that is, in 1773, Virginia suggested 
a plan of correspondence between the colonies. This had al- 
ready been tried on a small scale in Massachusetts, where 
a system of correspondence between the various counties 
had been adopted through the influence of the famous Sam- 
uel Adams. Virginia's move was one of far-reaching im- 
portance. Hitherto, the individual colonies had stood sepa- 
rate and alone against George III and his tyrannical meas- 
ures ; now they are to stand shoulder to shoulder. The most 
eminent men were appointed on these committees of cor- 
respondence. Dispatched by swift messengers from colony 
to colony, the letters of these great men told of every new 
encroachment upon the rights of the Americans. A promi- 
nent colonist living temporarily in England wrote to friends 
at home that this system of cooperation on the part of the 
colonies had "struck a greater panic into the ministers" of 
George III than anything that had taken place since the 
times of the Stamp Act. Of Virginia's part in this great 
movement, the eminent northern historian Bancroft says, 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 41 

"Whether that great idea should become a reality depended 
upon Virginia." 

(2) MECKLENBURG AND ST. JOHN'S CHURCH 

Two years later, met the immortal Virginia Conven- 
tion of 1775. This convention ordered that steps be taken 
"for embodying, arming, and disciplining such a number of 
men as may be sufficient" to protect the colony against ag- 
gression — the first action taken by any colony looking 
towards armed resistance against England. This conven- 
tion is likewise famous on account of the third great speech 
of Patrick Henry, the one known to every schoolboy in 
America. Old St. John's Church, Richmond, in which the 
convention met, is one of the most famous buildings in 
America and thousands of strangers visit it every year, and 
stand where Henry stood as he cried, "Give me liberty or 
give me death." An interesting incident of this convention 
is recorded. Edward Carrington, of Charlotte county, was 
standing in the churchyard, listening through a window, as 
Henry uttered those immortal words. "Let me be buried 
on this very spot," cried the enthusiastic and awe-struck 
man ; and, thirty-five years later, his remains were laid on 
the very spot where he had stood as he listened to the orator. 

The month of May, 1775, is famous for the "Mecklen- 
burg Declaration," so dear to North Carolina. As to this 
declaration, historians differ; but the oldest of Virginia's 
living historical investigators says : "Beyond all reasonable 
doubt, the first actual declaration of independence was made 
by the people of the county of Mecklenburg, in North Caro- 



42 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

lina, on the 20th of May, 1775 In 

the immortal instrument of July 4, 1776, Mr. Jefferson 
is supposed to have been aided by this Carolina declaration." 
Mr. John Fiske, in arguing that the declaration is a mere 
"legend," and that no such paper was drawn up on the 20th 
of May, admits that, on the 31st of that month, the Meck- 
lenburg patriots "ventured upon a measure more decided 
than any that had yet been taken in any part of the country." 
Though the day is disputed, most scholars accept the fact. 

The people of Mecklenburg county established an inde- 
pendent county government. They threw defiance in the 
face of England. The only question of doubt is whether 
their independence was temporary or permanent; and this 
is one point on which historians differ. 

Whatever this brave county undertook, no colony had as 
yet dreamed of absolute independence. Early in September, 
1775, the Provincial Congress of North Carolina unani- 
mously resolved, and called Almighty God to bear them 
witness, that it was the earnest wish and prayer of North 
Carolina to be honorably reconciled with the mother 
country. 

The British called Mecklenburg county "the hornet's 
nest." It is the mother of patriots and heroes, the Polks be- 
ing especially distinguished. Colonel Thomas Polk was 
very active in calling the Convention of 1775, and read the 
declaration from the steps. His son William, though a 
mere youth, distinguished himself in the Revolutionary 
War ; and William's son, Leonidas, was an eminent general 
in the Confederate army. 

Georgia had her revolutionary powder parties, which 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 43 

should be known to all Americans. When the news of the 
battle of Lexington reached Savannah, a body of patriots, 
among whom Joseph Habersham and Edward Telfair were 
especially prominent, took possession of the royal magazine 
in that city, and seized more than five hundred pounds of 
powder for the defense of the people of Georgia. A little 
later ^a British powder ship, bearing 13,000 pounds of pow- 
der for the use of the royal troops, arrived at Tybee Island, 
below Savannah ; again, the heroic Habersham was ready to 
serve his country. With a party of thirty volunteers, he cap- 
tured this powder, stored 8,000 pounds in a magazine in Sa- 
vannah, and sent 5,000 pounds to Boston, just in time to be 
of effectual use at the battle of Bunker Hill. In January, 
1776, Habersham did a still bolder thing. The Committee 
of Safety in Savannah, believing that the royal governor 
was about to imitate the conduct of the infamous Governor 
Dunmore, of Virginia, determined to arrest him. This re- 
quired a man of nerve and courage, and Habersham under- 
took to do it. Entering the council-chamber while the king's 
council was in session, Habersham laid his hand upon the 
governor's shoulder, and said, "Sir James, you are my 
prisoner!" The governor's person was secured, but he was 
treated with the respect due his rank and dignity. "Thus," 
says a Northern writer, "Colonel Habersham put an end to 
royal rule in Georgia." 

The Northern historians themselves have immortalized 
the deeds of the revolutionary South: "The blessing of 
Union," says Bancroft, "is due to the warm-heartedness of 
South Carolina." Of Virginia, the same high authority 
writes: "In this manner, Virginia laid the foundations of 



44 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

our Union." Another eminent Northern man, Robert C. 
Winthrop, says of Virginia: "It was union which opened 
our independence ; and there could have been no union with- 
out the influence and cooperation of that great leading 
Southern colony." 

VII 

Independence 
(i) 1772 AND 1775 

All the measures taken by the colonists were, thus far, 
purely in self-defense. Absolute and final independence of 
England was not dreamed of by any large number. Ameri- 
cans at first threw off the government of George III, just 
as an injured wife sometimes leaves her husband, and 
throws off his authority until he makes apology and repara- 
tion. The idea of complete independence took root slowly. 

Meanwhile local governments were being organized. 
This was the result, in large part, of the battle of Lexington, 
which really precipitated the war long threatening. First 
came the Mecklenburg Declaration. A few days later, June 
4, 1775, the Provincial Congress of South Carolina "or- 
ganized an association which was practically a provisional 
government of the people." This is claimed by a distin- 
guished Southern historian as "the first independent or revo- 
lutionary government set up in any of the colonies."* 

•General Edward McCrady, of South Carolina. 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 45 

This action of South Carolina was forestalled, however, 
by other Southern patriots, and their champion is Theodore 
Roosevelt, whose pen has done no little to glorify the South 
and its heroes. In his Winning of the West, Roosevelt tells 
us that the western pioneers of the Watauga settlement or- 
ganized a government at the headwaters of the Tennessee 
river, in 1772, and that "they were the first men of Ameri- 
can birth to establish a free and independent commonwealth 
on the continent." These men of Watauga were refugeeing 
from the tyranny of Tryon, the despotic royal governor of 
North Carolina. Their leader was James Robertson, of 
Wake county, North Carolina, who is known in history as 
"the father of Tennessee." Another eminent Southerner 
comes now upon the canvas. It is John Sevier, of Virginia, 
who, in 1772, joined James Robertson, and helped him to 
lay the foundations of the state of Tennessee. 

Let us summarize briefly : In the matter of setting up an 
independent revolutionary government, Massachusetts was 
the first Northern colony ; South Carolina was a month or 
more ahead of Massachusetts ; but North Carolinians, led by 
a North Carolinian, were three years ahead of both Massa- 
chusetts and South Carolina. 

We have gladly quoted Roosevelt, the Northern historian. 
As, however, the lamented J. L. M. Curry is better known 
in the South as an authority on such matters, we will say 
that he also makes this statement as to the priority of the 
Watauga revolutionary government. 

The year 1775 was a critical year in the revolutionary 
movement. The battles of Lexington and Concord; the 
Mecklenburg Declaration; the establishment of revolution- 



46 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY, 

ary governments in somo of the colonies; the fight with 
Dunmore at Great Bridge — all helped to precipitate actual 
independence. Virginia had been quite conservative until 
Dunmore seized the powder stored by the colonists' in Wil- 
liamsburg for defense against the Indians, urged the ne- 
groes to rise against their masters, and, on New Year's Day, 
1776, burned Norfolk, the principal town of Virginia. 
Then, independence began to be discussed quite freely. 
"During the winter and spring, the revolutionary feeling 
waxed in strength daily." Still, no colony was willing to 
cut itself off from the mother country. They still called it 
"home," and hoped that terms of peace honorable to all 
might be agreed upon. 

(2) THE YEAR 1776 

On the 10th of February, 1776, a bold step forward was 
taken by Christopher Gadsden, of South Carolina. This 
fearless patriot said, in the Provincial Congress of his state, 
that he was in favor of the absolute independence of 
America. This, says the historian Drayton, "came like an 
explosion upon the members." John Rutlcdge, who later on 
came reluctantly and slowly to the side of total independ- 
ence, rebuked Gadsden for his intemperate language, and 
the Provincial Congress refused to tolerate Gadsden's sug- 
gestion. 

Early in 1776, however, matters approached a crisis. The 
efforts of England to hire troops from Russia and her suc- 
cess in securing mercenaries from parts of Germany in- 
furiated all the Americans. About the same time an epoch- 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 47 

making book was published. Just as Uncle Tom's Cabin 
(1852) helped to fire the Northern heart against slavery 
and to inflame the South by its partisan treatment of the 
subject, so Thomas Paine's Common Sense, though con- 
taining much nonsense, had enough shrewd practical wis- 
dom to produce a wonderful effect upon the people of all 
the colonies. Paine said nothing new and original. He an- 
ticipated the Biglow Papers by contemptuous ridicule of 
the other side, anticipated Uncle Tom's Cabin by a shrewd 
and plausible misrepresentation of the enemy's position, and 
put in caustic and catching style the arguments that such 
men as Samuel Adams had been for years advancing. The 
pamphleteers are mightier than the statesmen. 

On the 1 2th of April, 1776, the "Old North State" spoke 
out. On that day, the North Carolina Congress authorized 
their delegates in the Continental Congress to "concur" 
with the delegates of the other colonies in throwing off al- 
legiance to England; and this, say Northern historians, 
Fiske and others, was "the first explicit sanction given by 
any state to the idea of . independence." Even South Caro- 
lina was behind her big sister. She had just sent delegates 
to Congress without any very definite instructions. Along 
with Georgia and Maryland, she, about this time, agreed 
to join in any movement for the general welfare. On the 
1 5th of May, Virginia took a bolder stand than fearless old 
North Carolina. She declared in favor of total separation, 
and took steps to draft a constitution, which was adopted 
June 29, and was the first constitution of a free common- 
wealth on the continent. 

Meanwhile, individuals were doing bold things on their 



48 HALF-HOURS IN' SOUTHERN HISTORY 

own authority. April 23, Chief-Justice Drayton, of South 
Carolina, told his grand jury that George III had abdicated 
the government, and that South Carolina was free and in- 
dependent. Drayton and Gadsden moved too fast at this 
time for most of the South Carolinians. There were a great 
many Tory merchants and planters in the east of the state ; 
while the Germans of the upper country had , so much more 
liberty than they were used to at home that they did not 
become roused up until Tarleton went to Carolina and liter- 
ally rode over the people. 

The year 1776, then, was the year of independence. Many 
prominent South Carolinians took a bold position. North 
Carolina was the first colony to sanction independence, and 
Virginia, a month later, used still bolder language. 

The vote for independence in Congress was at first far 
from unanimous. The Southern colonies were more out- 
spoken than the Northern ; but even one of the former had 
to be persuaded. Pennsylvania was slow in voting for the 
declaration. New York had given no instructions to her 
delegates, and they were very nervous ; but, on July 9, New 
York ratified the declaration. 

The Declaration of Independence was really a war meas- 
ure. It was the triumph of a party, of the extreme liberty 
party led by the Adamses, Gadsden, and other fearless pa- 
triots. Some of the delegates had no idea of the seriousness 
of the step they were taking, but changed their votes as a 
man might do on any question of expediency. One promi- 
nent delegate, in writing to the president of his state, men- 
tioned, parenthetically, that they had declared the independ- 
ence of America. They builded better than they knew. 




THOMAS TEFFERSON 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAY 8 49 

Though the Continental Congress was nothing more than a 
vigilance committee of prominent citizens with no authority 
to bind the people, its acts of July 4, 1776, were ratified by 
all concerned, and all the members are now familiarly 
known as "signers." 

The Declaration of Independence did not and could not 
create a nation. To say otherwise is to pervert history. 

The month of June, 1776, is immortal. In that month 
Virginia adopted the Declaration of Rights, drawn up by 
George Mason. This great paper, commonly called the Vir- 
ginia Bill of Rights, was the first declaration of rights ever 
passed on this continent. It placed George Mason, the Vir- 
ginia planter, among the supreme political thinkers of the 
world. He has been called "the pen of the Revolution," a 
title which is also accorded Thomas Jefferson. 

Most features of the Bill of Rights were familiar to all 
Englishmen. They were but concise rehearsals of clauses of 
the Magna Charta, and of the English Declaration of Rights 
of 1689. Mason was saying nothing new, but was saying it 
for the first time on the western continent. One clause, 
however, was magnificently new. If only the last clause ojF 
Mason's paper had been adopted by the Virginia statesmen, 
it would have made these men and Virginia famous through- 
out the ages. This was the clause in regard to religious 
freedom. Never before, says William Wirt Henry, had any 
civil government in the whole world allowed the claim of 
absolute religious freedom. Individuals here and there had 
suggested it. More, in his Utopia, told of the wonderful 
land where men might enjoy religious freedom; but men 
laughed at this as at other Utopian visions. The Puritans of 



50 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 



New England persecuted Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, 
and Quakers. The Cavaliers of Virginia persecuted Quak- 
ers, Baptists, Puritans, and Roman Catholics. "Baltimore 
only professed to make free soil for Christianity."* Penn's 
laws of 1682 tolerated none but believers in God, and per- 
mitted none but Christians to hold office. "Williams's char- 
ter was expressly to propagate Christianity, and under it a 
law was enacted excluding all except Christians from the 
rights of citizenship, and including in the exclusion Roman 

Catholics."t 

Williams was greater than laws and charter. He believed 
in absolute religious freedom. Rhode Island in his day be- 
came a house of refuge for men of all religions and of no 
religion. Williams was a great and remarkable man. He 
towered like a colossus above the other religious thinkers of 
his era. After all, however, he was but the leader of a small 
band of religionists, too feeble to affect the course of his- 
tory. If we reject the opinions of Henry and Winsor, and 
say that the Rhode Island colony was more than a hundred 
years ahead of Virginia in time, what is the situation ? Just 
this : Williams and his little band were a colony of religion- 
ists fleeing from persecution, and were in need of toleration. 
The Virginia Convention of 1776, on the other hand, was 
composed largely of churchmen, who needed no protection, 
and who saw, with prophetic statesmanship, that a great 
democracy must ultimately rest upon absolute freedom of 
religious opinion. 



*W. W. Henry and Justin Winsor, 
+Henry and Winsor. 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DATS 51 

No greater body of men ever sat in the Roman senate or 
met in the agora at Athens. 

VIII 

The South in the "Wat of the Revolution 
(i) HEROES AND HEROINES 

(a) MARYLAND 

The "Maryland Line" is famous in history. Through- 
out the whole of the Revolutionary War, this body of 
troops were famed for their gallantry. At the battle of 
Brooklyn Heights, "the highest honors" were won by the 
Maryland brigade under Smallwood ; and, at the disastrous 
battle of Camden, almost the only honors fell to the men 
of Maryland. Again, at Eutaw Springs, they "drove the 
finest infantry of England before them with the bayonet." 

One of the most eminent soldiers of Maryland is William 
Smallwood. At Brooklyn Heights, White Plains, and Fort 
Washington, the "Maryland Line" under his command dis- 
tinguished themselves. At Germantown, they "retrieved 
the day and captured part of the enemy's camp." For his 
gallantry at Camden, where "Gates's laurels turned to wil- 
lows," Smallwood received the thanks of Congress, and was 
appointed major-general. 

Another popular hero is John Eager Howard. As a mere 
youth, he 'gallantly followed the noble Mercer at White 
Plains; distinguished himself at Germantown; and for his 



52 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

bravery and skill at Cowpens received a vote of thanks and 
a medal from Congress. It was the bayonet charge under 
his command that secured the victory of Cowpens and drove 
the vandal Tarleton from the field. "At one time of this 
day, he held the swords of seven British officers who had 
surrendered to him." 

Though history has rather overlooked this hero, his own 
state crowned him with civic honors, still reveres his mem- 
ory, and is erecting monuments in his honor. 

We can of course name only a few especially prominent 
soldiers. In a rapid outline like this, however, we should 
not overlook General Mordecai Gist, one of the heroes of the 
Maryland Line at Camden, so enthusiastic as a patriot that 
he named his only two children "States" and "Independ- 
ent;" Col. Otho Holland Williams, the hero of Eutaw 
Springs, to whom, at a critical moment in that battle, the 
commanding-general gave the order, "Let Williams advance 
and sweep the field with his bayonets;" and Col. Moses 
Rawlings, who led the Maryland riflemen at the storming of 
Fort Washington, when they, for several hours, withstood 
the attack of 5,000 Hessians. 

(b) VIRGINIA 

Though the battle of Lexington (April 19, 1 775,) pre- 
cipitated the War of the Revolution proper, bloodshed had 
taken place already. Of the battle of Alamance, North Caro- 
lina, in 1 77 1, we have already spoken. In 1774, occurred 
the bloody battle of Point Pleasant, in which the men 
of West Augusta, frontiersmen of Virginia, defeated the 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAY 8 53 

Indians under their famous leader, Cornstalk. The leader 
of the Virginians was the renowned Andrew Lewis. He is 
regarded by some as almost the equal of Washington, and 
his bronze statue has been placed by Virginia in the illus- 
trious group near the state capitol at Richmond. Lewis, on 
October 10, 1774, builded better than he knew; for his vic- 
tory of that day kept the Indian tribes of the northwest com- 
paratively quiet for the first two years of the Revolution, and 
opened the way for the settlement of Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee, and for the acquisition of the great Northwest Ter- 
ritory, from which several states were afterwards carved 
and added to the Union. 

It is almost certain that this Indian uprising was instigated 
by Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia. In the next 
year ( 1 775 ) , we find him trying to stir up a slave insurrec- 
tion. In this, however, he was almost as unsuccessful as 
John Brown, eighty-four years later, and for the same rea- 
son ; namely, that the slaves in Virginia were so happy that 
they did not wish to rise against their masters. 

At the Great Bridge over the Elizabeth river, Dunmore 
built a rude fort commanding the southern approach to the 
town of Norfolk. There, on December 9, 1775, his forces 
were overwhelmingly defeated by a body of patriots led by 
Colonel William Woodford, one of whose lieutenants was 
young John Marshall, afterwards chief- justice of the 
United States. Woodford was made a brigadier-general on 
February 21, 1777. At Brandy wine, Germantown, and 
Monmouth, he served gallantly at the head of his brigade. 

The "thunderbolt of the Revolution" is Daniel Morgan. 
Though born in another state, he is identified entirely with 



5 4 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Virginia, since he lived in that state for fifty years, com- 
manded her troops, and is buried in her bosom. 

Morgan rose from the humblest to the most exalted sta- 
tion. In Braddock's disastrous campaign, he served as a 
teamster. Later, he was made captain of a corps of ninety- 
six riflemen, which afterwards grew into the famous brigade 
that won the applause of both armies. In the summer of 
1775, he appeared with his ninety-six riflemen before Bos- 
ton, and brought a smile to the anxious face of Washington, 
just assuming command of the patriot army. He followed 
Arnold in his heroic march through the wilderness of 
Maine. At the great assault cfn Quebec, January 1, 1776, 
when Montgomery was killed and Arnold severely wounded, 
Morgan as commanding officer fought his way into the 
town, but for lack of support was taken prisoner with his 
whole detachment. After being released and exchanged, he 
returned to the army as colonel of riflemen. From that 
time, he and his corps became the "right arm of Washing- 
ton." In the retreat through the Jerseys, he rendered emi- 
nent service to the commander. In the Saratoga campaign, 
he was a most important figure, and, along with Arnold, 
Herkimer, and Stark, won the admiration of the enemy. 
A standard Northern encyclopedia says that he was the 
"chief instrument" in the capture of Burgoyne. The British 
general gave most generous praise to Morgan and his Vir- 
ginians. On being introduced to Morgan, he said, "My dear 
sir, you command the finest regiment in the world !" Gates 
and Washington contended for the honor of commanding 
him and his famous riflemen. They were lent by Washing- 
ton to Gates for the Saratoga campaign, but the latter was 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 55 

loth to return them. Wherever he served, he was the "right 
arm" of his commander. He is the Stonewall Jackson of the 
Revolution. 

An imbecile Congress slighted such men as the Arnold 
of Quebec and the Morgan of Saratoga. The former allied 
himself with Judas Iscariot; the latter, with Joseph E. 
Johnston. After the laurels of Saratoga turned to willows 
at Camden, and freedom shrieked, Morgan joined Gates in 
the South, Congress made him brigadier-general, and he was 
soon face to face with Tarleton, famous among cavaliers 
and chief among vandals. At Cowpens, Morgan, supported 
by Pickens, William Washington, and John Eager Howard, 
crushed an English army under Tarleton, depriving Corn- 
wallis of all his best light infantry, and sent him limping 
to Yorktown. 

Here ended the military career of Daniel Morgan: a 
physical malady that had been growing upon him soon com- 
pelled him to leave the service and return to his home in the 
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. 

In many ways, this great soldier prophesies of a later citi- 
zen of the Valley, and we 'are fain to call him brother to 
Jackson. 

Two of the great cavalrymen of the Revolution were 
Henry Lee and William Washington. The latter was a kins- 
man of General Washington ; the former, the son of Wash- 
ington's old sweetheart, spoken of in correspondence as the 
"Lowland beauty." Henry Lee is known in history under 
the affectionate sobriquet of "Light Horse Harry." At the 
beginning of the Revolution, he was a mere stripling. On 
July 19, 1779, he surprised the British garrison at Paulus 



56 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Hook, where Jersey City now stands, and carried off about 
1 60 prisoners, with a loss of only five in killed and wounded. 
For this brave deed he received a gold medal from Con- 
gress. In the Southern campaigns, he rendered valuable ser- 
vice to his country. When Greene made his masterly retreat 
through the Carolinas, Lee with his dragoons covered the 
rear of the patriot army. 

The South will never let "Light Horse Harry" be for- 
gotten. In romance and story, he is the Jeb Stuart of the 
Revolution; in history, he is immortal as the father of 
Robert E. Lee. 

Col. William Washington deserves to be remembered. 
When Virginia sent her sons north to defend her sister 
colonies, Captain Washington, a mere youth, shed his blood 
in the battles of Long Island and Trenton. In the South, he 
coped with Tarleton, whom he resembled in all but his moral 
attributes. At Cowpens, under Morgan, he rendered dis- 
tinguished service, and along with Morgan and Howard re- 
ceived a medal from Congress. In this battle, he and Tarle- 
ton had a sabre duel, in which both were wounded, and the 
latter had a good scar to show for the combat. The proud 
British dragoon ventured sometime afterwards to speak 
contemptuously of Colonel Washington to some North 
Carolina ladies upon whom he had thrust his society. "Who 
is this Colonel Washington?" he asked with a sneer; "I 
hear that he cannot read." "At all events," retorted Mrs. 
Wiley Jones, "he can make his mark." Again, he said to 
these ladies of Charlotte, "I should like to see this Colonel 
Washington." "If you had looked behind you at the battle 



TEE SOUTH IN OLDEN DATS 57 

of Cowpens, you would have had that pleasure," retorted 
Mrs. Ashe, of a noble family of Carolina. 

A heroic figure is General Hugh Mercer, of Virginia. 
As a young surgeon, he followed in 1745 the ill-fated 
Charles Edward, the "young Pretender." Emigrating to 
Virginia, he identified himself wholly with that colony. In 
Braddock's expedition, he was severely wounded. The 
Revolution found him practising medicine at Fredericksburg, 
Virginia ; but his military ardor was as great as when he fol- 
lowed the foolhardy leaders of his youth, and he offered his 
sword to Virginia. In June, 1776, at Washington's request, 
Congress made him a brigadier. He followed the com- 
mander-in-chief through the Jerseys, led the attacking col- 
umn at Trenton, advised the famous march on Princeton, 
and commanded the advanced column in the battle. His 
men, mostly militia, began to waver, and in making a heroic 
effort to rally them, he fell, pierced with several bayonets. 

Virginia has permitted a sister state, Pennsylvania, to 
outdo her in honoring the memory of the noble Mercer; 
and the United States has only recently erected a monu- 
ment to commemorate his heroism. 

Virginia should never forget Colonel William Campbell, 
one of the heroes of King's Mountain. In that battle, so mo- 
mentous in its consequences, there was no ranking officer 
on the field, and the other colonels selected Campbell as their 
commander. He is entitled to a full share of the glory. An- 
other one of these distinguished colonels, John Sevier, was 
born in Virginia ; but we shall group him with the "Border 
Heroes." Colonel Campbell's men were Scotch-Irish of 



58 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Washington county, Virginia, and were of the same stock 
as the men who afterwards followed Stonewall Jackson. 

To this distinguished list, we should of course add George 
Rogers Clark, "the Hannibal of the West." He gave the 
Northwest Territory to Virginia, and she, to the Union. 
Commissioned by Governor Henry, and leading hardy sons 
of the western counties, this brilliant young soldier set out 
to regain a very large territory which belonged to Virginia 
by original grant but which had lately been seized and gar- 
risoned by England. His marches read like a chapter of ro- 
mance, or a history of knighthood. 

Clad in hunting shirts, carrying knapsacks, long rifles and 
horns of powder, these heroic men marched through the 
wilderness and the boundless forest, traveled in boats down 
the Ohio river, waded up to their arm-pits in the freezing 
water of the drowned lands of the Wabash river, holding 
their guns and powder above their heads to keep them dry, 
compelled the British to surrender, and sent the governor as 
a prisoner to Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia. 

Thus this great area was restored to Virginia. In 1781, 
she ceded it to the Union. Afterwards, five states and part 
of a sixth were created from this Northwest Territory. 
Thus, in part, did Virginia earn her title of "the Mother of 
States." The grandsons of the settlers of these states were, 
in 1 86 1, her fiercest and most indomitable foes on the field 
of battle. 

Of Washington we need say nothing. To praise him 
would be like adding a grain of sand to the seashore or one 
drop to the falls of Niagara. We may say, however, to the 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 59 



young reader that even the illustrious Washington had his 
enemies, and still has his traducers. Shakespeare tells us, 

"Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow. 
Thou shalt not escape calumny." 

So it was with the "Father of his Country." During the 
war, he was assailed by the Conway Cabal, headed by an 
Irishman and encouraged by some prominent Americans; 
and one of the signers of the Declaration used anonymous 
letters to defame him. As president, he incurred the abuse 
of partisan papers and politicians, and was even accused of 
"looting" the treasury. In our day, a British historian 
would damn him as the murderer of Andre. These are but 
pigmies storming the rock of Gibraltar. The world now 
puts him with Alfred, regarding them as the highest pro- 
ducts of the Anglo-Saxon race. To these, posterity will add 
a third — Robert E. Lee 

(c) NORTH CAROLINA 

Among the most eminent patriots of North Carolina is 
General John Ashe. As Speaker of the Colonial Assembly 
in 1765, he fearlessly denounced the Stamp Act, saying that 
the people of that colony would resist the execution of the 
law to the death. With an armed force, he compelled the 
stamp master to resign his hateful office. In 1771, however, 
along with Caswell and others afterwards eminent as pa- 
triots, he supported Governor Tryon at the battle of Ala- 
mance. So great, however, was his patriotic zeal in 1775 
that he was publicly denounced as a rebel. During the war, 
he was captured and thrown into prison, where he contracted 
smallpox and died. 



60 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

The Ashes were distinguished soldiers, and their name is 
justly perpetuated by North Carolina. 

Two of the heroes of King's Mountain were Benjamin 
Cleveland and Joseph McDowell. They contributed no little 
to the brilliant victory which was a turning point in the 
Revolution. They led more than 500 brave North Caro- 
linians, constituting over half the patriot army. 

The most eminent of a prominent family was General 
Francis Nash. Though born in another state, he was identi- 
fied with North Carolina. As captain, he served at Ala- 
mance (1771) on the side of Governor Tryon; but, when 
English tyranny became intolerable, he offered his sword to 
America. He was a member of Washington's staff. In 
leading a brigade at Germantown, he was mortally wounded. 
The city of Nashville, Tennessee, was named in his honor. 
In November, 1777, Congress voted $500 to erect a monu- 
ment to his memory ; but, like Mercer and others, he had to 
wait more than a century before this monument was finally 
completed. 

Among the partisan leaders of the South, William R. 
Davie deserves honorable mention. When a boy, he was 
brought from England to South Carolina, but, at the out- 
break of the war, was living in the "Old North State." 
Commissioned by her, he commanded a troop of dragoons in 
Pulaski's legion. A handsome estate he spent in equipping 
cavalry to protect the southwest portion of North Carolina. 
He distinguished himself at Hanging Rock and Rocky 
Mount; and at Charlotte, with a handful of men, he kept 
back for a while the whole British army under Cornwallis. 
He is the father of the University of North Carolina. 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 61 

General Richard Caswell was both statesman and soldier. 
In the latter capacity he led the government forces at the 
battle of Alamance, but later on turned against King 
George and his henchmen. At Moore's Creek Bridge, Feb- 
ruary 27, 1776, he won a victory that greatly cheered the 
patriot cause in North Carolina. Most of his time, however, 
was given to civic office, and, in this sphere of usefulness, 
he left his impress upon the state of his adoption. 

Two other soldiers of North Carolina worthy of honor- 
able mention are Generals Griffith Rutherford and William 
Davidson. The former routed the Cherokees and Tories in 
1776, compelling the Indians to sue for peace. General 
Rutherford, after the war, served both North Carolina and 
the new territory of Tennessee in high civic positions. Gen- 
eral Davidson fought gallantly at Brandywine, Germantown, 
and Monmouth. Sent south, he lost his life obstructing the 
march of Cornwallis through North Carolina. The people 
of the state perpetuated his memory by naming a college in 
his honor, and Congress voted $500 to erect a monument 
to his memory. 

If New England has her Putnam and his famous ride 
down the stone steps, North Carolina has her William Hun- 
ter and his rock. This Colonel William Hunter was a noble 
patriot, and his name was held in "holy horror" by the 
Tories and the British soldiers. Being captured by David 
Fanning, the notorious persecutor of his fellow-countrymen, 
he made his escape and hid under some corn in a farmer's 
wagon. Fanning captured him, and said : "I am very glad 
to see you, Colonel Hunter. How did you pass the night? 
You look tired. You shall be hanged at once." , But Colonel 



62 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Hunter would not be hanged. Just as Fanning's men were 
getting a rope ready to hang Hunter to the nearest tree, he 
sprang upon Fanning's horse, famous for its speed, and 
rushed like the wind for Deep river, Fanning and his dra- 
goons in hot pursuit. When Hunter reached the river, there 
was no ford near him. Just before him, there rose out of the 
water a large slanting rock too steep for a man to go down. 
Hunter dug his heels into the horse's flanks, dashed down 
the rock at lightning speed, swam the horse across the river, 
and made his escape. 

The "Old North State" did nobly in the Revolution. Of 
her, Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, said in 1779: "I 
shall ever love a North Carolinian, and join with General 
Moultrie in confessing that they have been the salvation of 
this country." 

Not all the heroes can serve on the field of battle. Among 
civic heroes and martyrs, Cornelius Harnett, called by Jo- 
siah Quincy "the Samuel Adams of North Carolina," stands 
preeminent. He made his first reputation as an opponent of 
the Stamp Act ; then served on the Intercolonial Committee 
cf Correspondence; sat in the Provincial Congress of North 
Carolina; was for a while acting-governor of the state; 
exerted great influence m inducing North Carolina to de- 
clare for independence; was branded by Sir Henry Clinton 
as a rebel beyond the pale of foregiveness. On July 
22, 1776, after he had read the Declaration of Independence 
to a great throng at Halifax, they bore him on their shoul- 
ders in triumph through the town. In the drafting of the 
state constitution in 1776, he became the father of religious 
liberty in North Carolina. He fearlessly dared the dungeon 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 63 



and the scaffold. When the British captured the Cape Fear 
region, Harnett was thrown into prison, and died in cap- 
tivity. 

In the War between the States, the women were the "big- 
gest rebels." So was it in the Revolution. How Southern 
ladies could twit the notorious Tarleton, we have already- 
seen ; how they could fight like the Amazons of old, we see 
from the following story of Grace Greenlee McDowell. 
This heroic woman was the wife of Colonel Charles 
McDowell, an ardent patriot of the Revolution. She aided 
her husband zealously in his fight for liberty. When he was 
manufacturing powder afterwards used at King's Moun- 
tain, she made the needed charcoal in small quantities in her 
fireplace, and carried it to him at night secretly. When the 
time came, she could use the powder. Her house being 
plundered during her husband's absence, she called together 
a few neighbors, pursued the robbers, — Tories and British 
— captured them, and at the muzzle of the musket com- 
pelled them to restore her property. 

(d) SOUTH CAROLINA 

The first decisive victory of the Revolution was won at 
Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, by Colonel William Moul- 
trie. Though most of his family were Tories, he from the 
first was an ardent patriot. He had won his first reputation 
in wars with the Cherokees. When the Revolutionary War 
began, he was made colonel of a regiment. On the 28th of 
June, 1776, he drove the fleets of Sir Henry Clinton and 
Admiral Peter Parker away from the city of Charleston. 



64 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

A few years later, he was taken prisoner. .While in cap- 
tivity, he was offered a handsome sum of money, and a 
colonel's commission in a Jamaica regiment, to leave the 
American army. "Not the fee-simple of all Jamaica," he re- 
plied, "should induce me to part with my integrity." He 
was a typical gentleman of the South Carolina school. 

In his honor, the name of the fort he defended was 
changed to Fort Moultrie. 

His fame as a historian, also, is well established. His 
Memoirs of the American Revolution is one of the source- 
books of American history. 

No state has equalled South Carolina in the skill and dar- 
ing of her partisan leaders. Virginia is proud of Mosby and 
his men, whom the Federal government threatened to hang 
on sight as brigands and assassins, in spite of the fact that 
Colonel John S. Mosby bore a regular commission from the 
Confederate government. Kentucky ought to glory in the 
fame of John H. Morgan, who, when captured, was con- 
fined in a felon's cell in the Ohio penitentiary, instead of 
being confined in a military prison. South Carolina can 
point to three famous partisans of the Revolution. 

The greatest of these is Francis Marion. He served his 
apprenticeship in 1759 as a soldier in the Cherokee War. 
In 1 76 1, he and a band of thirty performed a brilliant feat 
that aided materially in crushing the Cherokees. In the 
battle of Sullivan's Island, he rendered distinguished service 
as a major of a regiment. Gates, the great boaster, did not 
appreciate him. Accordingly, he raised a force known as 
"Marion's brigade." From this time, he practiced guerrilla 
warfare. With a force varying from twenty to seventy, 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 65 

armed with rude swords made from saws taken from the 
sawmills of his state, and using bullets made from pewter 
mugs and dishes, he would hide in the swamps and woods 
of the Pedee anJ Santee regions, and rush out and over- 
power much larger bodies of the enemy. His name was a 
terror to both Tories and British regulars. His enemies 
called him the "Swamp Fox." 

He led Tarleton many a long and fruitless chase, and 
greatly annoyed that famous marauder. On one occasion, 
Tarleton, is said to have exclaimed to his men, "Come, boys, 
let's go back and find the 'Game Cock' (Sumter) ; as for 
this infernal 'Swamp Fox,' the devil himself could not catch 
him." 

In the Southern campaign, Marion was intimately asso- 
ciated with "Light Horse Harry." The account of him given 
in that soldier's Memoirs of the war depicts him as a hero, 
a chevalier, and a gentleman. 

An interesting story of General Marion will throw fur- 
ther light upon his character. An English officer sent to his 
headquarters on a special mission, was courteously invited 
to dinner. When the meal was brought in, it consisted of 
roasted sweet potatoes served on a shingle. "Surely, Gen- 
eral, this is not all you have ; is it ?" said the Englishman. 
"Indeed, it is," answered Marion; "and it is uncommonly 
good on account of your visit." The Englishman then asked 
Marion what pay he got ; to which he received the answer, 
"None." "Why do you fight for a government that gives you 
no pay and starves you?" he asked. "I am fighting for my 
ladylove," said the American. "Who is she?" "Liberty," 
replied Marion. 
5 



66 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

The officer, returning to his command, told his fellow- 
officers that it was useless to fight an army composed of such 
men as Francis Marion. Tradition goes on to say that this 
officer resigned his commission, went back to England, and 
said that he would no longer fight against a people with such 
motives and such leaders. 

Thomas Sumter was called the "Game Cock" by Tarle- 
ton. In his fighting qualities and fearlessness, he resembles 
Hood, the Confederate. He was present at Braddock's de- 
feat, and later served against the Cherokees. His great ca- 
reer, however, did not begin until after the fall of Charleston 
(1780). Shortly after this, he organized a band of parti- 
san rangers, and entered upon a guerrilla warfare. At 
Hanging Rock, with Davie, the noted partisan of North 
Carolina, he routed a force of British and Tories. Sumter's 
men, however, did not like to fight in regular line and face 
artillery ; they preferred irregular warfare and cutting com- 
munications, and revelled in surprises. In such things, he 
and his band were masters. Blackstock Hill is his greatest 
victory. There, November 20, 1780, he dealt a stunning 
blow to Tarleton, who retreated with heavy loss, and wrote 
Cornwallis of his brilliant victory. Sumter's irregular 
methods and his utter recklessness led to some unpleasant- 
ness with other patriot leaders. 

Though his fame as a soldier was already secure, it has 
been freshened up by the "game cock" exploits of his 
namesake, Fort Sumter, in the War between the States. 

Cornwallis called him "the greatest plague in thecountry." 

Along with Marion and Sumter, we group another noted 
partisan, Andrew Pickens. In 1 761, he fought against the 



TEE SOUTE IN OLDEN DAYS 67 

Cherokees. In the Revolution he rose rapidly from the rank 
of captain to that of brigadier-general. He is one of the he- 
roes of the Cowpens. For his nerve and daring in that 
battle he was voted a sword by Congress. He was allied by 
marriage to John C. Calhoun, the greatest of South Caro- 
linians, and was the grandfather of Governor Francis W. 
Pickens, who in 1861 demanded that the Union forces 
should evacuate Fort Sumter. 

Pickens, like Marion, was of Huguenot descent. Both be- 
long to a stock that have ever known their rights and, 
knowing, dare maintain. 

Dear to the South and to our whole country, should be the 
name of Emily Geiger, the noble daughter of South Caro- 
lina. Along with the brave Molly Pitcher, the heroine of 
Monmouth, she should be immortalized in the history of 
our country; for, when General Nathaniel Greene was 
resting his weary soldiers on the hills of the Santee and 
keeping them out of the sickly and malarial swamps of the 
lower country of South Carolina, and it was absolutely 
necessary that he should communicate at once with Sumter, 
who was many miles away, this noble girl of eighteen 
volunteered to pass through the British forces and the nu- 
merous Tories that swarmed the country and bear a message 
from Greene to Sumter. Both verbal and written messages 
were given her. Then she put spurs to her horse and gal- 
loped away on her patriotic errand — an errand which a 
man could not have thought of undertaking. On being 
stopped and searched by the enemy, she chewed and swal- 
lowed the written message, made her way to General Sum- 
ter's headquarters, and delivered the verbal message which 



68 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 



produced such a movement of the patriot army as compelled 
Lord Rawdon, the British commander, to abandon his posts 
in the country and retreat to Charleston. 

Another heroine of South Carolina is Rebecca Motte. 
Having married two patriot soldiers and being sister-in-law 
to a third distinguished soldier, Colonel Isaac Motte, one of 
the heroes of Fort Moultrie, she came well by her heroic 
character. After the British had seized her home, sur- 
rounded it with a parapet, and named it Fort Motte, Harry 
Lee and Marion laid siege to the fort, but were loth to de- 
stroy the property. Mrs. Motte soon quieted all their 
scruples, and showed the patriots how to dislodge the enemy. 
Bringing out her African bow and arrows especially adapted 
to the purpose, she soon set fire to the building, and com- 
pelled the British to come out and surrender. Then, with 
true Southern hospitality, she gave a banquet to the officers 
of both sides. 

(e) GEORGIA 

Georgia, in spite of her youth, of her small population of 
whites, and of the fact that many of her people were almost 
fresh from England, rendered no little aid in the Revolution. 
One of her finest soldiers was General Elijah Clarke. He 
fought the Indians and Tories on the frontiers ; fought along 
with Sumter on the Catawba, with Shelby at Cedar Springs 
and at Musgrove's Mills; at Blackstock materially aided 
Sumter; and in June, 1781, aided by Pickens and Light- 
Horse Harry, drove the British out of Augusta. 

General Lachlan Mcintosh is the most prominent of a 
family of soldiers. His father had fought under Ogle- 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 69 

thorpe in Florida ; seven of the family are said to have been 
prominent in the Revolution. Lachlan Mcintosh was made 
brigadier-general in 1776, rendered valuable service 
against the Indians on the border of Pennsylvania and Vir- 
ginia, took part in the attempt to drive the British out of 
Savannah, and was captured at the fall of Charleston. After 
his day, the family continued to produce fine soldiers. One 
of them distinguished himself in the Mexican War. In the 
War between the States, two brothers rose to prominence, 
one in the Federal, the other in the Confederate army. 

General James Jackson was a distinguished soldier of 
Georgia. In March, 1776, he took an active part in driving 
the British away from Savannah; in 1778, took part in the 
defense of Savannah; fought with Colonel Elijah Clarke; 
was aide to General Sumter at Blackstocks; and fought 
under Pickens at Cowpens. He rendered valuable service at 
the siege of Augusta by Clarke, Pickens, and Henry Lee, 
and, after the expulsion of the British, was left in charge of 
the garrison. The Jackson family is eminent in Georgia, 
and has produced distinguished jurists, poets, and soldiers. 

More famous than most generals is Sergeant William 
Jasper, a hero of Fort Moultrie. His name is embalmed in 
history and should be immortalized in literature. During 
the siege of Charleston in June, 1776, while the battle was 
at its fiercest, the flag was shot down and fell outside the 
ramparts. Sergeant Jasper sprang down, and, in spite of the 
galling fire from the British fleet, seized the flag, carried it 
back into the fort, put it on a new staff, and replaced it on 
the ramparts. This heroic soldier was afterwards killed in 
the siege of Savannah while acting as color-bearer (1779). 



70 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

It does not detract from Jasper's fame to say that he has 
had many noble imitators. In the siege of Charleston in 
1 863- 1 864, during the War between the States, more than 
twenty cases like his occurred; but his, being the first, is 
greatest forever. 

Among the heroines of Southern history is Nancy Hart, 
whom the Indians called the "War Woman." Various 
stories are told of her nerve and daring. On one occasion, 
a party of five armed Tories came to her house and ordered 
her to prepare them a meal. While she was carrying out the 
order, they stacked their arms within easy reach of the 
table. She shrewdly pulled the table into the middle of the 
room, so as to pass frequently between the men and their 
muskets. When the Tories asked for water, she sent her 
daughter to the well, with private instructions to blow the 
conch shell which summoned the men from the fields, and 
which soon brought her husband and neighbors to the house. 
Meanwhile, she had pulled a board from the house and 
slyly slipped two of the muskets through the hole. As she 
reached for the third, one of the soldiers saw her and gave 
the alarm. She raised a gun to her shoulder, threatening to 
shoot the first man that dared to come towards her. One 
took the risk, and fell dead; then a second; and the other 
three were captured, and, by Nancy's orders, hanged. 

On another occasion, she went to the British camp dis- 
guised as a man, and gained valuable information, which 
she conveyed to Colonel Elijah Clarke, the famous soldier 
of Georgia. 

Again, the Savannah river being high and all boats swept 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 71 

away, she crossed from Georgia into Carolina on a raft 
improvised of logs. 

The State of Georgia has honored Nancy Hart by giving 
her name to a county. 

(/) HEROES OF THE FRONTIER 

Among the famous sons of the South, we should never 
forget the heroes of the frontier. While the patriots in the 
old states fought a few vandals like Prevost and Tarleton, 
these brave frontiersmen contended with the relentless 
savage, who, when crazed with King George's whiskey, 
spared neither sex, age, nor condition. 

Preeminent among frontiersmen stands Daniel Boone, 
the father of Kentucky. Though born in Pennsylvania, he 
is more intimately allied with Virginia, North Carolina, 
and Kentucky. In the same connection, we think of Isaac 
Shelby, a native of Maryland, but known to history as one 
of the founders of Kentucky. With several other Southern 
colonels, he won distinction at King's Mountain. 

Of James Robertson, the "father of Tennessee," we have 
already spoken. With him we associate John Sevier, the 
first governor of Tennessee, and one of the heroes of King's 
Mountain. These two conquered the Cherokees at the Wa- 
tauga in 1776, and thus helped to secure the ground won 
two years before by General Andrew Lewis and his men of 
West Augusta. 

The fame of these men is assured : sectionalism has never 
attempted to belittle them. In the most recent volumes of 
Fiske and Roosevelt, their figures are thrown upon the can- 



72 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

vas in proportions well-nigh colossal. Says the lamented 
Curry, one of Alabama's greatest sons : "These backwoods- 
men were ardent patriots, and deserve to be classed with 
their fathers and brothers on the Atlantic coast." If An- 
drew Lewis "blazed" the way for Sevier and Robertson; if 
these in turn opened the way for George Rogers Clark, and 
if he added five great states to the republic, these five men, 
sons of the South, should assuredly be ranked among our 
national heroes. 

John Fiske supports this claim most heartily.* He spec- 
ifies "four cardinal events in the history of our. western fron- 
tier during the Revolution." Three of these were the events 
named in the foregoing paragraph. So that Fiske clearly 
shows that the South deserves three-fourths of the credit 
for the fact that in 1783, when peace was declared with 
England, "the domain of the independent United States 
was bounded on the west by the Mississippi river." 

(2) TROOPS AND BATTLES' 

The number of troops in the Revolutionary War can never 
be known accurately. The statements made in some books 
are totally unreliable. The chief basis of our knowledge is 
the official report of General Henry Knox, secretary of war 
in Washington's cabinet ; but he says himself that the reports 
from the South were very incomplete; and we know now 
that many men were counted over again whenever their 
short terms ran out and they reenlisted. All statements as 



*A11 this is ably brought out by Roosevelt in his Winning of the West, (I. pp. 
240, 306) and by Fiske in his American Revolution. 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 73 

to numbers in the Revolution made in this volume are 
therefore only provisional. 

Pennsylvania, as said before, was rather lukewarm. If 
Knox's figures be taken as a guide, that state did little over 
half as well as Virginia; New Hampshire less than half as 
well as South Carolina; South Carolina did three times as 
well as Pennsylvania, and excelled even Massachusetts and 
Connecticut. Out of every ioo men capable of bearing 
arms, Massachusetts sent j6\ Connecticut, 71 ; New Hamp- 
shire, 43; South Carolina, 88. 

Neither section as a whole can claim to have done its 
full duty. According to Knox's report, the North sent about 
44 per cent of its able-bodied men to the field; the South, 
48 per cent. Of the rest, thousands fought bitterly for Eng- 
land. At King's Mountain, for instance, Americans slew 
each other; and it is likely that Ferguson, the Tory leader, 
was the only British soldier on the battlefield. 

There were probably 500,000 men of military age in the 
country ; Washington says he never commanded over 26,000 
at one time. Contrast this with the 600,000 or more men 
furnished, between 1861 and 1865, by a white population of 
about six million. In 1861, parties and factions were wiped 
out in both North and South; in 1775, local jealousies, inter- 
state feuds, differences in creed, and sectional feeling, well- 
nigh wrecked the cause of independence. 

With good cause has it been claimed that providence, not 
man, freed America. 

The South gallantly aided in defending her Northern 
sisters. At Long Island, "The highest honors," says Fiske, 
"were won by the brigade of Maryland men commanded by 



74 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Smallwood." At Trenton, Mercer, of Virginia, and How- 
ard, of Maryland, with their "flying camps," led the column 
of attack; and, again at Princeton, Mercer led the ad- 
vancing column. At Saratoga, as seen already, Morgan's 
Virginians turned the tide of battle, and this led to Bur- 
goyne's surrender. 

Besides taking an active part in the greatest victories 
won on Northern soil, Southern men were driving the in- 
vader from their own. The English were hurled back for 
two years by the victory of Fort Moultrie. King's Moun- 
tain, won by men of the South, is regarded by historians as 
one of the decisive battles of the Revolution. A little later, 
the Carolinians defeated Tarleton at Blackstock. A few 
months after that, Southern troops almost annihilated Tarle- 
ton at Cowpens, and thus deprived Cornwallis of his cavalry. 
At Yorktown, later in the year (1781), the matchless skill 
of Washington, the Virginian, closed the war of independ- 
ence. 

(3) MISCELLANEOUS 

The Revolution was by no means a great popular upris- 
ing. Very few of the colonies were out and out in favor of 
fighting England. In 1771, for instance, when the battle of 
Alamance was fought, Richard Caswell, Francis Nash, and 
other great sons of North Carolina fought on the side of 
the royal governor Tryon against the "Regulators;" and 
that colony was not ready to rise as a whole till four years 
later (1775), when she heard of the battle of Lexington. 

As late as July, 1776, a good many were very reluctant to 
separate from England. The Declaration of Independence 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 75 

had to be "lobbied" through the Continental Congress, and 
great persuasion had to be brought to bear upon some of the 
men now famous as "signers." Pennsylvania and New York 
were lukewarm in the cause of independence. "Pennsyl- 
vania," says one of her own historians, "fought in the Revo- 
lution like a man with one arm tied behind his back." 
Washington could not recruit his army in the Jerseys. 
Maryland was said to be full of loyalists. South Carolina 
did not rise to her feet until 1778, when Tarleton made his 
infamous raids into the Waxhaws. The mayor of New 
York was caught in a plot to seize General Washington, and 
either murder him or try him for treason. The British 
government counted upon the indifference of the Middle 
Colonies, and planned to detach them from the Confederacy, 
and thus cut it in half, and then kill the ends separately. 

In those "times that tried men's souls," Massachusetts 
and Virginia stood shoulder to shoulder. Though the New 
Englanders and the Virginians mixed but little socially and, 
as said elsewhere, more or less despised each other, they 
united heartily in the cause of independence. A Massa- 
chusetts statesman selected and urged George Washington 
as commander-in-chief of the patriot army ; and, while this 
was done largely from policy, it shows that great men 
could in those days rise above sectional prejudices, and 
give up personal preferences for the good of their country. 
Massachusetts passed by her own John Hancock, to honor 
the Virginian Washington. 

In speaking of the Middle Colonies in the Revolution, we 
spoke without malice. Indeed, we spoke regretfully. More- 



76 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

over, we are supported by eminent Northern authorities. 
We believe that those colonies were held back by circum- 
stances that would have checked either Massachusetts or 
Virginia. 

Nor do we claim that the South achieved American in- 
dependence. We do say, however, that in what was done 
she played a conspicuous part, and that without her there 
would have been no independence. Of her part we are writ- 
ing in this volume, the North's part being well told by her 
sons in thousands of volumes of history, of essay, and of 
poetry. 

Bancroft, the Massachusetts historian, says, generously, 
that the men of South Carolina suffered more, dared more, 
and achieved more than the men of any other state. Charles 
Pinckney's opinion of the North Carolinians, we have al- 
ready quoted. McCrady, the eminent South Carolina histor- 
ian, says that South Carolina and Georgia overpaid their 
quota of expense, and that South Carolina in outlay vastly 
exceeded all other states save Massachusetts. General 
Joseph Reed, Washington's adjutant-general, said in 1776, 
"The gallantry of the Southern men has inspired the whole 
army." General Gates, in a letter which he wrote during 
the war to Washington, said that Burgoyne's army was 
most afraid of Morgan and his riflemen. Fiske's history of 
the Revolutionary period immortalizes many Southern sol- 
diers. 

The South bore the brunt of the suffering. Two of her 
principal cities stood long sieges, and one was burned by 
the enemy. Irregular warfare desolated her homes, and left 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DATS 77 

her people without shelter. The vandals and hirelings of 
the British army plundered her people and desolated homes 
and firesides. 

Probably one- third of the colonists sympathized with 
England. Thousands of the leading families of New York 
refugeed to Nova Scotia, Canada, and other places, to get 
away from the angry patriots. Many prominent families of 
the far Southern states took refuge in the Bahama Islands 
and the other English possessions. On the other hand, Mas- 
sachusetts and Virginia were from the first practically unan- 
imous against England. 

Virginia had always been the most loyal of the old col- 
onies. The tyrannical conduct of George III had, however, 
changed her sentiments. When Massachusetts was over- 
awed and maltreated, Virginia nobly took her part. In all 
sections of Virginia it was boldly declared that "the cause of 
Boston is the cause of us all." 

Most unnatural, therefore, was the long alienation be- 
tween these two ancient commonwealths. Sad was it that 
two Massachusetts pens, Mrs. H. B. Stowe's and Mr. James 
Russell Lowell's, helped to increase this alienation. Better 
days, we trust, are coming. The kind words of Mr. Charles 
Francis Adams and of Hon. George F. Hoar, of that state, 
are doing no little to bring the two old sister commonwealths 
together and hasten the dawn of a better era. The small 
politicians, and the bomb-proof brigadiers of the editorial 
ink-pot, however, are still hurling their billingsgate in foul 
profusion, and postponing the day of reconciliation. If we 
could only hang these pygmies and let the voice of the giants 



78 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

sound from "Boston Plains" to the Rio Grande, these two 
sisters might soon meet at the old fireside and call a great 
family reunion. 

IX 

The South and the Constitution 
(i), THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787 

In your state histories, you read about your state consti- 
tutions. Most of the Southern states have recently 
adopted new constitutions, to meet the new conditions 
that have confronted our people within the last few decades. 
Of these state constitutions, we are not now speaking. Our 
present chapter has to do with the constitution of the United 
States, which was drafted in 1787, and which, with fifteen 
amendments, binds together the forty-seven sovereign states 
that form our Federal Union. Under this constitution with- 
out amendments, the Union was carried on from April 30, 
1789, to December 15, 1791. The first ten amendments 
were declared in force on the date given. On January 8, 
1798, the eleventh amendment was put into operation; on 
September 25, 1804, the twelfth; after the War between 
the States, three more amendments were added. 

It is a most desirable thing for a people to have a written 
constitution. In this respect, our government is better than 
that of England ; for her people have no such great written 
constitution, but a so-called "unwritten constitution" made 
up of charters, decisions of eminent jurists, compacts be- 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DATS 79 

tween king and people — an undefined and indefinable some- 
thing that is frequently called "the legal constitutional code 
of England." 

The word constitution as used in this volume, then, gen- 
erally refers to the constitution of the United States. In the 
drafting of this great paper, this compact between the states, 
the South was very prominent, two men that stamped them- 
selves upon it very deeply being James Madison and George 
Washington, both, as you know, Virginians. 

The convention that drafted this constitution met in 
Philadelphia, and sat from May to September, 1787. Its 
president was Washington. Among the members were Dan- 
iel Carroll, of Maryland; Edmund Randolph, George 
Mason, George Wythe, Madison, and Washington, of Vir- 
ginia; Charles and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and John 
Rutledge, of South Carolina ; William R. Davie and Hugh 
Williamson, of North Carolina ; William Few and Abraham 
Baldwin, of Georgia. Some of these were much more prom- 
inent in the convention than others; but history will show 
that Edmund Randolph and the Pinckneys were as influen- 
tial as most of the Northern members, and that Alexander 
Hamilton alone among the delegates from the North was 
as influential as Madison and Washington. 

A new and a strong constitution was the most "crying 
need" of our young nation. To this need, many good men 
shut their eyes deliberately. Some feared to create a Federal 
union stronger than the states. A few very wise men, like 
Madison, Hamilton, Charles Pinckney, and Washington saw 
that a strong general government had to be created. 



80 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

The Declaration of Independence was adopted by the 
Continental Congress, which was a sort of standing com- 
mittee of the thirteen states. By tacit consent, that is, by 
being generally endorsed all over the country, this declar- 
ation became binding upon the states. This same Continen- 
tal Congress carried on war against England. It elected 
generals, sent ambassadors to Europe, and called upon* the 
various states for money, troops, and supplies. It was ut- 
terly unable, however, to compel the states to carry out its 
orders ; each state "did that which was right in its own eyes," 
and the result was confusion worse confounded. 

In 1 78 1, the states adopted the Articles of Confederation. 
This paper, also, proved too weak for purposes of govern- 
ment. It did not give the general government the power to 
carry out its orders, its mandates, and did not act upon in- 
dividuals, like the constitution of 1787. These Articles were 
in force from 1781 to 1788, and these seven years are often 
called "the critical period of American history." 

The young republic was drifting hither and thither. Her 
money was practically worthless; her soldiers and their 
families shivering and hungry; her credit gone; and 
European nations standing off, laughing at her calamity, 
and ready to devour her. A stronger government must be 
created. There must be power lodged somewhere stronger 
than that wielded by the old Continental Congress and by 
the Articles of Confederation. 

No men saw this more clearly than Washington, Madi- 
son, and C. C. Pinckney, Southern representatives in the 
Federal convention. They wanted a strong Federal govern- 




JAMES MADISON 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 



ment, to act upon individuals and collect revenue, and to 
command the respect of foreign nations. 

To the proposed constitution, many great men were vio- 
lently opposed. Patrick Henry "smelt a rat," as he said, and 
refused to go as a delegate to the convention. He predicted 
that the new government to be created by the states would 
some day ride roughshod over the states ; and we know how 
fully his prophecy has been verified, how it has been ful- 
filled to the very letter. 

The constitution of 1787 was one of compromises, and, 
like most compromises, pleased no one entirely. It was, 
however, a wonderful paper, and puts the Americans of the 
1 8th century among the greatest constitution-builders of the 
ages. 

Various causes made it very difficult to frame a govern- 
ment for the thirteen sovereign states just separated from 
England. As already said, there were dislikes and jealousies 
between states and between sections. Very bitter was the 
jealousy of the small states against the large. Small states 
such as Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland were ar- 
rayed against large states such as Pennsylvania, Massachu- 
setts, and Virginia. This sustains our statement made in 
previous paragraphs that in the early periods the lines drawn 
between parts of our country were not as sectional as in our 
era. This interstate jealousy came near preventing the con- 
vention from drafting a constitution. In the old confedera- 
tion (1781-1788), the states had been on a perfect equality, 
the votes in Congress being by states. To give up this 
equality was a sore trial to the small states, as they feared 
that their representation in Congress would be utterly 
6 



82 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

swamped by that of the larger states. This serious question 
was settled by giving all the states equal representation in 
the Federal senate. For this reason our Senators in Wash- 
ington may be regarded almost as ambassadors from the 
states to the Union. 

Other obstacles to a new government in 1787 were the 
negro questions continually presenting themselves for so- 
lution. A large number of people of the North and many 
statesmen of the South wished to abolish the slave-trade. 
This might have been done immediately but for the ob- 
jection of a few states in each section. By a combination 
between these, the slave-trade was given a respite of twenty 
years, that is, till 1808. 

Another perplexing negro question was whether the 
slaves should be counted in the population and help to fix 
representation in the lower House. This, like the two ques- 
tions already discussed, came near preventing the adoption 
of a constitution. Here, again, compromise was resorted to. 
Under the leadership of James Madison, the South agreed 
not to demand full representation for her slaves, but to ac- 
cept the three-fifths ratio, by which five slaves counted as 
three persons in the population. With these three compro- 
mises, the constitution was submitted to Congress and, af- 
terwards, to the thirteen separate states, with the proviso 
that it should go into effect when any nine had adopted it, 
and be binding upon the states so ratifying it. 

In persuading the other states to accept these compro- 
mises, Connecticut and Virginia played a very prominent 
part 



TEE SOUTE IN OLDEN DAYS 83 

(2) THE STATES CREATE THE UNION 

The most casual reader must have seen that states were 
in the act of creating a Union. After the representatives of 
eleven states had drafted the paper now known as the con- 
stitution, it had no binding force whatever until ratified by- 
conventions of at least nine states, and then only upon those 
ratifying it. Each state acted separately as a sovereignty 
through a convention. Three states reserved the right to 
withdraw whenever their interests were in danger. Two 
staid out of the Union for some time: North Carolina, 
till 1789; Rhode Island, till 1790. After the ninth state 
ratified the constitution, the other four might "have staid 
outside as separate and independent republics; for, at that 
time, no such idea as that the states were created by the 
Union had ever been dreamed of in our philosophy. 

Meantime, what became of the old Articles of Confed- 
eration? They were styled articles of "perpetual union," 
and yet, in seven years, they were coolly set aside as too 
weak for purposes of a strong Federal government, and a 
new paper substituted for them. 

This was nothing short of secession. Nine states seceded 
and set up a new republic, and no voice was raised in pro- 
test. "Nothing secedes like secession" may be said of that 
movement, as well as of the secession of Panama from Co- 
lumbia in November, 1903, the Roosevelt administration 
standing as godfather to the lusty infant nation as he yelled 
himself into the family of republics. 

The word secede is not found in the constitution. To put 
it there would have been sheer folly; for doing so would 



84 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

have invited every discontented state to threaten secession. 
That the right of secession was held by all sections in 1788 
is, however, now admitted by some of the most eminent 
Northern men, such as Henry Cabot Lodge and Charles 
Francis Adams. (In another chapter we shall show that se- 
cession was first threatened in New England. ) 

Bancroft calls James Madison "the chief author of the 
constitution." The "Virginia plan," outlined by Madison 
and presented by Edmund Randolph, was adopted in pref- 
erence to plans outlined by Northern statesmen. Compro- 
mises on various questions had to be accepted. Problems 
were left for posterity to solve ; some of them, unfortunately, 
to be settled on the field of battle. But might cannot make 
right, and gunpowder cannot determine moral questions. 
The South looks to posterity to prove that she has never 
violated the constitution. 

James Madison is known in history as "the father of the 
the constitution." In this connection, we may quote the late 
John Fiske, of Massachusetts : "In the making of the gov- 
ernment under which we live, these five names, Washington, 
Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Marshall — stand before 
all others." 

All but one of these five are Southern men. The name of 
Jefferson is a household word among men of all political 
parties. Both the great parties of our day use his name to 
conjure with, and claim him as their founder, their patron 
saint. Of Marshall we need only say that he is recognized 
both at home and abroad as the greatest expounder of the 
constitution. Both North and South have combined to 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DATS 85 

glorify him ; the former being swayed to some extent doubt- 
less by the fact that he interpreted the constitution according 
to the view long popular north of the Potomac; the South 
being swayed by her admiration for his great abilities and 
by her confidence in his spotless character. While referring 
to this supreme chief-justice, we may pause to remark that, 
for nearly two-thirds of its existence, the Supreme Court of 
the United States has been presided over by Southern 
jurists, Taney and Marshall. 

We have seen already that the idea of absolute religious 
freedom was born in Virginia. This idea was engrafted on 
the Federal constitution, the clause enacting that "no relig- 
ious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office 
or public trust under the authority of the United States/"' 
being moved by C. C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, and 
championed ably by James Madison. At this time and for 
several decades afterwards, England would not permit any 
one to hold office, or even to take a degree in her universi- 
ties, unless he communed according to the rites of the es- 
tablished church. So that the statesmen and the legislators 
of the South blazed the way of religious freedom for the 
sages of Europe. 

To the head of the new Federal government, all voices 
called George Washington. In his cabinet, sat Jefferson, 
Edmund Randolph, James McHenry, Charles Lee, and 
Joseph Habersham, Southern jurists and statesmen. 

The foregoing paragraphs on the constitution are merely 
introductory. They are intended to show the part played 
by Southern statesmen in laying the foundations of our gov- 



HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 



ernment The conflicting views of the constitution, and the 
long, sad quarrel over its doubtful clauses, we reserve for 
later chapters. 

X 

The South's Part in Maintaining and Expanding; the Union 

(i) THE WAR OF 1812 

Let us pass on to later eras. Let us study some statis- 
tics of the post-revolutionary and ante-bellum periods. 
In those periods, when sectional lines were less closely 
drawn than they were afterwards, the Southern states 
furnished nine out of thirteen presidents. Moreover, the 
only men elected to second terms were five presidents from 
the South: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and 
Jackson. Are those facts merely accidental? 

To return to the great wars : Without Virginia and the 
Carolinas, the Revolution would have been a total failure. 
Let us consider the War of 1812. In this second struggle 
with England, sometimes called the Second War for In- 
dependence, the South again covered herself with glory. In 
bringing on that war, the lead was taken by Southern states- 
men, because the warm blood of the young men of the South 
could no longer brook the insults of England, especially her 
stopping American ships on the high seas and dragging off 
sailors on the pretext that they were Englishmen. This 
war was very unpopular in New England, and was opposed 
by a few of the great leaders of the South, more especially 
the famous John Randolph, of Virginia. Clay, Calhoun, 
Crawford, Felix Grundy, Langdon Cheves, William 



TEE SOUTE IN OLDEN DAYS 87 



Lowndes, and other young leaders of the South determined 
to fight; and it is said that Mr. Madison thought of making 
Clay commander-in-chief of the army. The South furnished 
nearly all of the greatest soldiers, such as Isaac Shelby, 
Zachary Taylor, William Henry Harrison, Winfield Scott, 
and Andrew Jackson, and fully five-eighths of the private 
soldiers. Especially distinguished were Harrison and Jack- 
son. Harrison, already famous as the hero of Tippecanoe, 
won the great victory of the river Thames, which, following 
the naval victory of Lake Erie by Commodore Perry, drove 
the British out of Michigan, and practically broke the power 
of the Indians in the Northwest. Jackson won the great 
battle of New Orleans (January 8, 1815), which showed 
the world that the fighting power of the Americans had not 
declined since the days of King's Mountain, Cowpens, and 
Yorktown. 

Both Harrison and Andrew Jackson became national 
heroes. The former is known in history as "Tippecanoe;" 
the latter, as "Old Hickory." Both were elected to the presi- 
dency before the days of "dark horses," that is, in the times 
when both parties put their strongest men on the presidential 
ticket. 

Even in a rapid sketch, we may pause to mention a few 
other men of Southern birth or Southern descent who dis- 
tinguished themselves in this war. We again meet Isaac 
Shelby, of King's Mountain. Though sixty-three years of 
age, he fought under General Harrison, and distinguished 
himself in the battle of the Thames. In this same battle, 
Col. Richard M. Johnson, member of an illustrious family 



HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY, 



that had migrated from Virginia to Kentucky, led a cavalry- 
charge that turned the tide of battle; and it is thought by- 
many, and he himself thought, that he dealt the fatal blow- 
to the great Indian chief Tecumseh, who was helping the 
British. In the Southwest, General Jackson was fighting the 
Creek Indians, who were allies of England ; and in his army 
fought a gallant young soldier, afterwards idolized in 
Tennessee and in Texas, Sam Houston, the hero of San 
Jacinto and the father of Texas. 

Another hero of this war is Major George Croghan 
(Crawn), nephew of George Rogers Clark. At Fort Steph- 
enson, in 1 813, Croghan, with one cannon and about 160 
men, was besieged by the British general Proctor with 1,200 
British and Indians. His gallant defense of the fort proved 
to be a turning-point in the war. Croghan received a gold 
medal from Congress, and was afterwards rapidly promoted. 
He afterwards served with great gallantry in the war with 
Mexico, being especially distinguished at the battle of Mon- 
terey. 

The War of 1812 was, as already said, very unpopular in 
some sections of the country. The South and the West were 
eager for it, not because they had no interests at stake, as 
a well-known text-book says, but because they saw that the 
nations of the world would have no respect for us if we 
continued to bear the : insults of England. The Middle and 
the New England States were as a rule bitterly opposed to 
fighting England. In Congress, the representatives of all 
these, except New Hampshire, Vermont, and Pennsylvania, 
voted against declaring war upon England. Says the same 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 89 

Northern historian* just referred to : "Thirty- four members 
of the opposition joined in an address, to their constituents 
in which they stated in substance that the United States was 
composed of eighteen independent sovereignties united by 
bonds of moral obligation only, and that, if we entered upon 
the contest with England, we did so as a divided people." A 
good many men volunteered from Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut, but the governors of these states "refused to fur- 
nish their quota of militia." At that time (1812), the New 
England people evidently believed in v states rights and in 
nullification. 

From what we have said, it is clear that the people and 
the leaders of New England and of the Middle States were 
opposed to this war with England. In a later chapter, 
we shall have occasion to refer to the Hartford Convention 
(1814), in which such men as the Cabots, the Lowells, the 
Longfellows, and other leaders of New England, were pro- 
testing against the war, and taking steps towards seceding 
from the Union. All this is painful, but it is history. Our 
reason for telling these unpleasant facts is to show that 
other sections besides the South long believed in the right of 
secession, and that at a very critical period — in a life-and- 
death grapple with England — our country was threatened 
with disruption by some secessionists of other sections. 

Greater and more patriotic than some of the leaders of 
New England at this crisis were her gallant seamen. How 
the young navy of our country met and worsted the navy 
of England, hitherto invincible; how the pride and arro- 
gance of the English seamen were humbled ; how the trade 

*D. H. Montgomery. 



90 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY, 

of England was crippled, and marine insurance driven up to 
enormous figures; how such great sea-captains as Bain- 
bridge, Porter, and Lawrence brought lustre to the name of 
the young republic — all this is a "twice-told tale," and need 
not be repeated in this volume. 

Duing this war, the Star Spangled Banner was com- 
posed by Francis Scott Key, the most famous of a distin- 
guished family of Maryland. This song and America, by 
Samuel F. Smith, of Massachusetts, are rivals for popu- 
larity. In the summer of 1903, the secretary of war an- 
nounced officially that hereafter the Star Spangled Banner 
would' be the national air for both army and navy. 

During the period following the War of 1812, the only 
"doctrine" ever added by a president to the creed of the 
republic was proclaimed by President Monroe, of Virginia. 
In the famous paper referred to, President Monroe warned 
the nations of Europe that no more European colonies 
should be planted in America, and that the United 
States would not be indifferent to the interference of for- 
eign nations in the affairs of any of the American peoples. 
This means "America for Americans." If accepted by the 
world as a part of the law of nations, it will make Monroe 
more famous than most of the kings and emperors of his- 
tory, will make his name familiar to every schoolboy on 
five continents. 

(2) THE MEXICAN WAR 

In 1846, war again clouded the horizon. As in 1812, the 
brunt of it fell upon the Southern people, many Northern 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 91 

people, especially the New Englanders, regarding it as "a 
war of unholy aggression." 

As in the case of most wars there were various causes, 
some remote, some nearer. Long-continued ill-feeling be- 
tween the United States and Mexico had put the two coun- 
tries into such a position towards each other that almost any 
disagreement might lead to armed conflict. This ill-feeling 
was due to American sympathy with Texas; the bitterness 
that made war likely to break out at any moment was due 
to the annexation of Texas to the United States (1845) ; 
the immediate cause, or the occasion, of the war was the 
question of boundary between Texas and Mexico. 

Texas had rebelled against Mexico. The great victory of 
San Jacinto, gained in 1836 by General Sam Houston, led 
to the independence of Texas; but this independence had 
never been acknowledged by Mexico. She gave notice 
plainly to the United States that <he annexation of Texas 
would be regarded by Mexico as an insult, and would lead 
to war between the two countries. 

The abolitionists of the North were opposed to the an- 
nexation of Texas. They thought that it would increase the 
area of slavery, and probably add eight Southern senators. 
Massachusetts plainly said that she would not be bound by 
any such action, but would feel at liberty to secede from the 
Union. Twenty members of Congress, Adams of Massachu- 
setts and Giddings of Ohio among them, published an ad- 
dress in which they said that the annexation of Texas 
would fully justify a dissolution of the Union. 

In spite of such threats, however, the majority of the 
people of the United States voted in 1844 for "Polk and 



92 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Texas." Meantime, President Tyler had been very active in 
bringing- on the annexation of Texas, and deserves a large 
part of the credit for the accession of that great territory. 
When Polk came into office, he found Texas in the Union, 
and saw a war with Mexico almost unavoidable. 

As already said, a boundary dispute was the occasion of 
the war now threatening. Texas claimed that her western 
boundary was the Rio Grande; Mexico said that it was the 
Nueces river. Under ordinary circumstances, this question 
might have been settled by arbitration. It soon led, how- 
ever, to armed conflict. 

In the summer of 1845, Mexico sent an army to the Rio 
Grande. Thereupon, President Polk sent General Zachary 
Taylor with an army to protect American interests in the 
disputed territory, and also put an American fleet in the 
Gulf of Mexico. Soon the Mexicans crossed the Rio Grande 
and attacked the Americans. Thereupon Congress resolved 
that war existed between the two countries "by the act of 
Mexico." Again the abolitionists raised a great cry of "un- 
holy aggression," Southern adventure, and slavery ex- 
tension. 

That the South" wished to annex Texas, we cannot deny, 
and do not care to do so. That she hoped to see Texas added 
to the domain of slavery, we also admit with perfect candor. 
These two wishes, however, were both constitutional and 
honorable; whether they were expedient or not is another 
question, and depends upon the view one takes of the sub- 
ject of African slavery. Slavery was an existing fact, recog- 
nized by the constitution, but its area had by this time been 
greatly limited by total abolition in many states and by pro- 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DATS 93 

hibition in other states and territories. To extend slavery 
into Texas was the devout wish of the Southern people. 
The acquisition of Texas was the result of the election of 
Polk and Dallas, which was accomplished by the Democratic 
party, regardless of sections. 

Here again, we see the South sticking to the constitution. 
Through thick and thin, through good report and evil re~ 
port, this has been her record. Whether the constitution was 
out of date, a moral anachronism, an old skin which the 
new wine was obliged to burst — this is a question that only 
an inspired pen could answer with authority 

General Zachary Taylor, as already said, had been sent to 
hold the disputed territory. Here began his distinguished 
career as a military hero. At Palo Alto (May 8, -1846), 
Resaca de la Palma (May 9), Monterey (September 19), 
Buena Vista (February 23-24, 1847), this great soldier 
brought lustre to his state and to his country. 

Nor were all Northern soldiers idle in this great crisis. 
General Stephen W. Kearney set out in June, 1846, and 
marched from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to Santa Fe, New 
Mexico ; thence, westward to California. There, in conjunc- 
tion with Col. John C. Fremont and Commodores Robert 
F. Stockton and John D. Sloat, he snatched California from 
the Mexicans. 

General Winfield Scott had been directed to assault Vera 
Cruz, the Gibraltar of Mexico. On March 29, 1847, he 
captured this old Spanish stronghold, and marched towards 
the city of Mexico, two hundred miles northwestward. At 
Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, and 



94 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Chapultepec, the Americans won brilliant victories. On Sep- 
tember 14, 1847, Scott entered the city of Mexico, and 
planted the American flag on the palace of the Montezumas. 

General Scott says that his success in Mexico was largely 
due to the skill and the gallantry of Captain R. E. Lee, of 
the engineer corps. Other engineers worthy of praise are 
George B. McClellan, John B. Magruder, and G. P. T. 
Beauregard, men to be heard of in the '6o's. 

Two of the heroes of this war were Col. Jefferson Davis 
and Gen. John A. Quitman, both solders of Mississippi. To 
the former and his famous Mississippi Rifles, were largely 
due the victories of Monterey and Buena Vista ; to Quitman, 
was largely due the victory of Chapultepec. South Carolina 
was represented by the gallant Major Pierce Butler and 
Daniel H. Hill, who was called by the young officers "the 
bravest man in the army," and whose native state presented 
him with a sword as a reward for his gallantry. The first 
body of troops to enter the city of Mexico was the Palmetto 
Regiment of South Carolina. Maj. Thomas J. Jackson, of 
Virginia, was promoted more frequently for gallantry than 
any other man in the army. Other Virginians worthy of 
special mention were Joseph E. Johnston and A. P. Hill, 
both famous in a later struggle. 

Kentucky sent Theodore O'Hara, whose poem, The Biv- 
ouac of the Dead, has given immortality to the men that died 
in Mexico. North Carolina was represented by Capt. Brax- 
ton Bragg and his artillery, distinguished at Buena Vista. 
Maryland sent Samuel Ringgold, the artillery hero of Palo 
Alto, and Charles Augustus May, the cavalry hero of 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 95 

Resaca de la Palma. Georgia sent General Henry R. Jack- 
son, the poet-soldier, and Josiah Tatnall, whose little gun- 
boat won great applause. 

At least two-thirds of the troops were from the South; 
most of the others came from the states northwest of the 
Ohio. As said already, New England figured little; New 
Hampshire is said to have furnished one soldier. Had New 
England gone into the war, she would doubtless have fur- 
nished brave troops and famous generals. The statement of 
Mr. Theodore Roosevelt that her "military spirit" suffered a 
great "decline" about the middle of the nineteenth century, 
as the money-making spirit grew, will not make Mr. Roose- 
velt a popular author in New England. 

The Mexican War was a great training-school for 
soldiers. Alongside of each other fought men that were 
afterwards to oppose each other in the war between the sec- 
tions. Some of these we have already spoken of; others 
were Barnard E. Bee, Lewis A. Armistead, Ulysses S. 
Grant, H. W. Halleck, Joseph Hooker, A. E. Burnside, 
George G. Meade, Earl Van Dorn, and Irvin McDowell. 

In this connection, we may recall an anecdote of General 
Winfield Scott. When the war of secession began, he was 
commander-in-chief of the United States army, and did all 
he could to capture the "rebel capital." He had to give up 
the idea of taking Richmond, however, and defend his own 
capital. Some one asked him why the man that had taken 
the city of Mexico could not take Richmond. His reply was, 
"Because the very men that took me into Mexico were keep- 
ing me out of Richmond." 



96 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Speaking of the Mexican War and its heroes, Mr. Percy 
Greg, the English historian, says : "As the Americans ac- 
tually on the field were a little more than one to four, Buena 
Vista might well have been regarded as one of the most 
glorious names in the military history of the United States. 
It certainly entitles May, Davis, and Bragg to rank with the 
best and bravest soldiers of the Wars of Independence and 
of 1812 — with Greene, Putnam, and Harrison." The her- 
oism of Col. Jefferson Davis is frankly admitted by some 
Northern historians. Few writers of either section, how- 
ever, have done justice to Ringgold, May, Bragg, Quitman, 
and Tatnall, but have given the lion's share of the glory to 
Scott and Taylor, while General Stephen W. Kearney is 
rarely given either his full name or his initials. 

Of the "injustice" and "unholy character" of the Mexi- 
can War, we are being continually reminded. In a volume of 
addresses published by a recent cabinet officer, we are taught 
to censure our fathers of the South for going into this war 
of "unjust aggression." 

(3) MISCELLANEOUS 

If the South has had all of the censure, she has had also 
most of the glory of the War with Mexico. Two Southern 
presidents had brought about the annexation of Texas. 
Southern soldiers had done most of the fighting. To the 
South is due the credit for adding to the Union the great 
state of Texas, with New Mexico and California — in all 
more than 965,000 square miles of territory. 




JAMES MONROE 



THE SOUTH IN OLDEN DAYS 97 

What territory, indeed, has ever been added without 
Southern brains and Southern valor? Of George Rogers 
Clark's great conquest (1779), we have already spoken. 
The purchase of Louisiana by President Jefferson (1803) 
more than doubled the area of the Union. The same presi- 
dent's sending Lewis and Clark to explore the mouth of 
the Columbia river led later to the acquisition of Oregon 
territory. Monroe bought Florida, and thus greatly ex- 
tended the national domain. 

It is a well-known principle of human nature that men 
value what they pay for, that they appreciate what they 
suffer for. So the South loved the Union. It was her 
Union, the Union of her fathers, freed partly by the heroism 
of her fathers, enlarged and made glorious with the aid of 
Southern brawn and bravery. That she should love this 
Union was natural ; that she did love it is undeniable. How 
can she ever leave it ? How can she ever fire upon the flag 
which her Washington first flung to the breeze, and which 
her Key sang in immortal measures? The answer is writ- 
ten in later pages of this volume. In self-defense, she drew 
the sword against her Northern sisters. Against intolerable 
grievances, she protested long and fruitlessly, and in 1861 
fought for the constitution, under the constitution, and 
against those who had violated the solemn guaranties of 
that constitution. 

" 'Tis better to have loved and lost 
Than never to have loved at all." 



98 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

CHAPTER II 

THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 
I 

"Truth Is Mighty and Will Prevail n 

IN the foregoing chapter, we showed how our fathers re- 
sisted tyrants, wrote declarations, maintained them on 
the field of battle, and drafted constitutions. We now 
turn to more quiet scenes. In this chapter, we shall see them 
on the old plantation, and in the family circle. We shall 
watch them in their relations to the slaves. We shall refute 
the slurs heaped upon them up to the present moment by 
some ill-informed and by some malicious people. We shall 
learn why so many of our men became superb cavalrymen 
both in the Revolution and in the War between the States. 
We shall see the father in the family circle, with his sons 
around him, giving them ideals of honor that made South- 
ern chivalry a phrase of glory among the nations. 

Such is the theme of this chapter. Phases of social life 
not bearing upon these points, we shall leave to the maga- 
zine writer and the novelist. 

This old Southern civilization has never been understood, 
but has been misrepresented, maligned, and travestied. The 
stage has caricatured it. Poets have prostituted their gifts 
to vilify it. The muse of history has been degraded from 



TEE E0ME8 TEAT MADE EEROES 99 

her high office and made the mouthpiece of the traducer 
and the slanderer. Fiction has lent her artful and seductive 
aid, and books, unfair and disingenuous if not purposely 
malicious, have made the Southern planter's name a byword 
and a hissing among the nations ; while children in schools 
where the Bible was lying upon the table as the standard of 
life and of morals have been taught, by precept and by pic- 
tures, that a planter was a man whose daily business was to 
maltreat and lash the negro.* 

Those misrepresentations have been sown broadcast, and 
borne upon the winds of heaven. The books that contain 
them are still found by thousands in private and public 
libraries wherever steam can carry them, and have been read 
as gospel truth by men, women, and children among all 
civilized nations. Oratory could not catch them. States- 
manship could not refute them. They went into the home of 
the mechanic, the merchant, the lawyer, the scholar, in the 
Northern and Western states, and in Europe, and taught 
them to hate and despise the Southern people ; and their 
specious statements cut the South off from the sympathy 
of all mankind. 

II 

The South's History "Written By Her Enemies 

The South used to produce statesmen rather than writers. 
Nothing, for instance, is more remarkable than the vast ar- 
ray of legal talent shown by all the older generations of 

♦This refers to a text-book long used in certain schools; it defines a planter and illus- 
strates by a picture of a man lashing a slave. 

LOFCs 



100 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Virginia. The bar of Richmond was formerly made up al- 
most exclusively of men that would have graced the Su- 
preme Court of the United States or adorned the king's 
High Court of Justice. 

Nearly every boy of promise wished to be a lawyer. Only 
thus could he hope for political honors; and political pre- 
ferment was the goal of nearly ( every able man's ambition. 
If success came at the bar, it led him into prominence as a 
politician. Politics was both the glory and the bane of our 
civilization. 

Few men had time for writing books. While Southern 
orators and jurists were thrilling listening senates, their 
enemies were writing books to prejudice the world against 
Southern institutions. 

In this matter the enemies of the South got fifty years' 
start of her. They got the ear of the North and of all 
Europe, and did her an incalculable injury. The most 
that she can do now is to write the true story of her 
beautiful old civilization in essay, in fiction, in history, and 
in poetry, so that her own children and all others that care 
to do so can read it and tell it to those that are willing to 
listen. 

Though most of her ablest men went into politics, the 
South had some very gifted writers. Her facilities for publi- 
cation, however, have always been limited, and the works of 
her writers have had comparatively little circulation. More- 
over, the ear of the North was poisoned, and Southern books 
defending the South were but little heeded. Such men as 
Thomas R. Dew, N. Beverley Tucker, and Abel P.Upshur, 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 101 

of Virginia ; William Gilmore Simms and Samuel H. Dick- 
son, of South Carolina, and Bishop Stephen Elliott, of 
Georgia, wrote ably in defense of Southern institutions; 
but their words fell upon unheeding ears, and their ink was 
wasted. De Bow's Review and the Southern Literary Mes- 
senger fought a brave fight, but could not stem the tide that 
had set in against the South. While Uncle Tom's Cabin sold 
by the million and was translated into several foreign lan- 
guages, Aunt Phillis's Cabin, an able reply to it by Mrs. 
Mary H. Eastman, of Virginia, is known to none but anti- 
quaries. 

In this connection, let us quote the solemn warning of the 
late Dr. J. L. M. Curry, an eloquent defender of his people : 
"History, poetry, art, public opinion have been most unjust 
to the South. By perverse reiterations its annals, its acts, its 
inner feelings, its purposes have been grossly misrepre- 
sented. History as written, if accepted in future years, will 
consign the South to infamy." How true this is one can see 
every time he turns over the leaves of most of the encyclo- 
pedias and other reference books in our libraries; and the 
poetry of America is so filled with hostility to the , South 
that we can hardly read it without throwing down the book 
in anger. 

For instance, the Encyclopedia Britannica says: "Since 
the revolutionary days, the few thinkers of America born 
south of Mason and Dixon's line are outnumbered by those 
belonging to the single state of Massachusetts ; nor is it too 
much to say that, mainly by their connection with the North, 
the Carolinas have been saved from sinking to the level of 



102 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY. 

Mexico and the Antilles." This slur could easily be refuted, 
but the scope of this volume does not permit our doing it. 
The Southern teacher and the Southern student, however, 
should be forewarned as to all such books. In the ponderous 
volumes of the work named above, we find all kinds of ob- 
scure foreigners and obscure Americans of other, sections 
glorified; but it almost, if not entirely, ignores John Sevier 
and Isaac Shelby, heroes of the frontier; Cornelius Har- 
nett, Richard Caswell, James Iredell, and Nathaniel Macon, 
heroes, statesmen and jurists, of North Carolina; Peyton 
Randolph, Edmund Randolph, George Wythe, William C. 
Rives, the Tuckers, and Light Horse Harry Lee, eminent 
men of Virginia ; William R. King and William L. Yancey, 
of Alabama ; William Jasper and Richard Henry Wilde, of 
Georgia; William Wirt and William Pinckney, of Mary- 
land; King's Mountain, Guilford Courthouse, and York- 
town are buried in oblivion; and a reader has to scour the 
usual English editions to find out anything about General 
Daniel H. Morgan, one of the heroes of the Revolution, and 
J. E. B. Stuart and N. B. Forrest, two of the greatest cav- 
alry generals of the English race. 

An air of contempt for the South pervades, we think, the 
whole of this encyclopedia. After implying, in the pas- 
sage quoted, that after the Revolution, the South sank into 
insignificance, it goes on in other places to underrate the 
most eminent men; of that section. Take for instance, the 
statesmen of the period under discussion. The three men 
that stood preeminent in American public life were Clay, 
Calhoun, and Webster. This encyclopedia gives a tolerably 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 103 

complete outline of the career of Daniel Webster. It brings 
him out clearly as a statesman and an orator of command- 
ing ability. Not so with Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. 
No one would imagine, from reading the meagre sketches 
of these men, that they too commanded the applause of lis- 
tening senates, solved the most complicated problems of in- 
ternational law, and became the idols of millions of their 
fellow-countrymen. 

To see such men as Clay and Calhoun almost ignored in 
a great encyclopedia should bring every American to his 
feet. Who in the old ante-bellum days was not proud of 
these great senators? Clay, Calhoun and Webster! their 
names were always grouped together, and were household 
words in America. When Clay was to speak, the streets and 
the stores of Washington were deserted, and the whole city 
flocked to the capitol to hear that rich, sonorous voice rever- 
berate through the senate chamber. Of Calhoun, the pro- 
found logican, the learned statesman, every schoolboy in our 
country is proud. These, with the illustrious Webster, made 
the American senate the delight and the wonder of two con- 
tinents. Well may the South call for new encyclopedias to 
do justice to such sons ! 

Others besides the Southern people have suffered from 
having their history written by their enemies. No man has 
ever been more caricatured in history than Oliver Crom- 
well; no soldiers more ridiculed and burlesqued than his 
praying and fighting warriors. The facts are easily ex- 
plained : the history of their era was written by their ene- 
mies, and it is only in our day that English historians are 



104 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

doing the Protector and his soldiers justice. In that respect, 
the heroes of the South have fared better than the English- 
men in question ; for some eminent writers of the North now 
freely admit that the South produced far greater leaders 
than the North in the war of secession, and many Northern 
people regard Robert E. Lee as the greatest American since 
Washington. 

Ill 
Tired of Hearing Him Called "The Just" 

A special object of hate and of derision was the so- 
called "effete aristocracy," played-out aristocrats, of Vir- 
ginia. On these, the stage, the novelist, the poet, and 
the historian poured the vials of wrath and indignation. 
What had Virginia done ? Why all this venom against the 
most ancient of the commonwealths, the mother of states 
and of statesmen? We have answered the question in ask- 
ing it: She was the oldest of the commonwealths; she had 
produced too many statesmen and presidents, too many 
great soldiers in the Revolution and in later wars with Eng- 
land and with Mexico. It was the old story of Aristides re- 
enacted on a new continent. The noblest of the Greeks was, 
you remember, stopped one day in the market-place by a 
man who asked him to write the name of Aristides upon his 
shell. "Why, my good fellow," said Aristides, "what has 
Aristides done that you wish to ostracize him?" "Oh, noth- 
ing, said the boor; "but I am tired of hearing him called 
'The Just.' " 

He who runs may read. 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 105 

This "effete aristocracy" soon proved that it .was not 
effete. At Manassas in 1 86 1, it furnished a Johnston to lead 
with the noble Creole of Louisiana, and a Stuart to ride like 
a Rupert carrying terror and dismay among the invaders of 
his dear Virginia. A little later, it produced a Lee, who, in 
seven days, made the deeds of the Confederate soldier read 
like a chapter from Caesar, or like an extract from the 
campaigns of Napoleon. 

On the stage, the Virginian had been held up to ridicule 
and scorn. In fiction, he and his wife and daughter had been 
represented as vulgarians, speaking an English that would 
stamp them in any drawing-room of the North or of Eu- 
rope as ignoramuses and provincials. Nothing could be less 
true. No greater misrepresentation was ever uttered. A 
good many old-fashioned Virginians, we admit, used a num- 
ber of provincialisms that provoked a smile in other sections 
of the country and even from their own children and grand- 
children ; but, on the other hand, nowhere in the world has 
better and purer English been spoken than among the cul- 
tured classes of Virginia. So said the late Prof. George F. 
Holmes of the University of Virginia, an Englishman of 
finished culture, and Thackeray and Matthew Arnold, whose 
opinions will be accepted without question. 

IV 

Culture and Refinement 

In pronunciation, we will admit, the Northern people are 
more exact, and talk more "by the book;" but in enun- 



106 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

ciation and intonation the South is far superior. Noth- 
ing is more musical than the voice of a Southern woman of 
culture and refinement. 

The old Southern gentleman, in spite of an occasional 
provincialism, used racy, vigorous, idiomatic English. If he 
sometimes drawled, and often ignored his Vs, he did not 
drop 'h's out of his 'which', 'white,' and other words in 'wh/ 
nor give a nasal intonation to nearly every sentence. 

Culture and intelligence pervaded the old Southern so- 
ciety. Grammarians and philologists were not numerous; 
but well-informed, well-read men were plentiful. Home 
authors were not always encouraged; but the standard au- 
thors of England were read in thousands of families. Latin 
quotations fell from their lips almost unconsciously. In co- 
lonial days, "as Mr. Pope says, sir," was a familiar phrase; 
and, in recent decades, "Tennyson has well put it" clinched 
many an argument. The old tombstones of Virginia would 
prove that Pope was a household poet. 

Private libraries were very numerous. Nearly every fam- 
ily 'of position had several hundred volumes, and they were 
not kept for mere appearance. They were well used by the 
purchaser, and went on a long visitation around the neigh- 
borhood. The whole society of the old states of the South 
was characterized by intelligence and culture. Questions of 
the day, questions of tariff, of revenue, of slave legislation, 
discussions of prominent candidates for office, the latest edi- 
torials of the leading Whig and Democratic papers — all 
came up at the table and in the general sitting-room. The 
father, usually a planter, would discuss all public ' questions 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 107 

with his sons, not interfering in the least with their opinions. 
While they were away at college, he would correspond 
freely with them, discussing politics and politicians, parties 
and platforms. The sons wrote with the greatest freedom. 
The father was not a dictator in matters of opinion. When 
the war between the North and the South was brewing, Col. 
R. E. Lee did not attempt to dictate the action of his sons. 

The average of intelligence among Southern men was 
high. The great mass of citizens had well-formed opinions 
on public questions, and could express them forcibly. A 
churchyard on Sunday before and after' "service" or 
"preaching," or a court green on "court day," heard ani- 
mated discussions of many burning questions. The South- 
ern man is a born politician. He can still discuss questions 
of the day, and his horse sense is often more useful to the 
state than the greater book learning of some other Ameri- 
cans. 

Nor were schools and colleges neglected. A ' thoughtful 
writer* says that in 1850 the South sent eight boys to 
school or college where the North sent five. In the "olden 
days," the South, while employing numberless tutors for 
her ' sons, sent a great many young men to Northern col- 
leges, such as Princeton, Yale, and Harvard. A few went to 
William and Mary. After the opening of the University of 
Virginia, the poor boys of Virginia flocked there. Later, it 
became more of a rich man's school, and its master's degree 
became the highest academic honor on this continent. More- 
over, the "honor system," born at William and Mary, early 



*Rev. J. M. Hawley. 



108 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

took root at the University of Virginia. The ideal of abso- 
lute fairness and integrity fostered in Southern colleges was 
the Southern honor system in miniature, and has survived 
to a large degree to the present moment. It has both the 
virtues and the defects of the old Southern honor system. 
While not tolerating cheating, it too often permits idleness 
and shiftlessness. While demanding that students be first of 
all gentlemen, it too often winks at so-called "gentlemanly 
vices." We must admit, furthermore, that the college honor 
system is still very defective, and encourages things which, 
if done by a young man after leaving college, might soon 
land him in the penitentiary. The foundation, however, is 
solid, and should be used by us as the basis of a noble man- 
hood. In spite of its defects, it is, we believe, far superior 
to the code of college honor prevailing in some other sections 
of our country. 

V 

Manliness and Self-Reliance 

The whole trend of education was to develop manly 
self-reliance and independence. The honor system, as 
established in Virginia colleges and prevailing all through 
the South, was in thorough harmony with the train- 
ing of the Southern home. While carousing and playing 
cards for money were sometimes regarded as rather gentle- 
manly accomplishments, to tell a lie, to cheat on an examina- 
tion, to cheat at a game of cards — these damned a young 
man beyond all redemption. At home, he had been taught to 
despise a liar ; and a man who got anything under false pre- 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 109 

tenses was regarded as a liar, and despised accordingly. The 
Southern youth, like the Persian, were taught "to ride, and 
to tell the truth." 

The same honor system kept politics from being, as it 
is now called, "a dirty business. " Bribery was practically 
unheard of. A gentleman could run for office without being 
asked 'or expected to use any money except the cost of print- 
ing circulars or "dodgers," paying his traveling expenses, 
and publishing notices in the local papers. Says the late Dr. 
J. L. M. Curry, in this connection : "Bribery and corruption 
in elections, when it occurred, made the place and persons a 
byword and a scorn." 

Society was pure and elevating in its tone. Truth, cour- 
age, and honor were required of the men, and were their 
usual characteristics. Of the women, absolute purity was de- 
manded, and no purer women ever became the mothers of 
heroes. Certain weaknesses and so-called gentlemanly vices 
might be tolerated in the men — especially drinking, play- 
ing cards, and dicing — but the women were like Caesar's 
wife, above reproach. Nor was this confined to the higher 
classes. 

On the point-of-honor, the Southern gentleman was scru- 
pulously strict. So were the generations before him. The 
old Southern Cavalier has been ridiculed for his testy ad- 
herence to the point-of-honor, and much abuse has been 
lavished upon him. No doubt he had his faults; but he 
transmitted to his sons a sacred regard for truth, a chivalrous 
regard for women, fidelity to his friends, and a willingness 
to die for any righteous and noble cause that enlisted his 



110 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

sympathy and won his devotion. From such men, great civi- 
lizations may spring to enrich humanity. 

A gentleman's word could not be questioned. The mere 
suggestion of "lie" or of "prevarication" would not be tol- 
erated. Suit for damages was not brought inside of a court 
room, but in a field near by, with swords, or with "pistols 
and coffee." Even this so-called field-of-honor, however, 
was but an exaggeration of a great idea — the idea that 
honor is the greatest thing of all, and that life without honor 
is not worth living. 

No Spartan mother ever trained soldiers more superbly 
than the Southern home. In the Revolutionary War, South- 
ern troops rarely deserted their colors. In the War with 
Mexico, no Southern regiment disgraced itself. In the War 
between the States, the Spartan idea kept thousands of 
Southern men at the front long after they had lost all hope 
of independence. A gentleman could not afford to desert. 
Some men with nothing to lose did desert, and are pointed 
at to-day with the finger of scorn. 

This high sense of honor was instilled into the boy from 
his very cradle. Along with this, he was taught to be self- 
reliant, manly. He was taught to think as a man, to act as a 
man, to be a man. When the great controversy between 
North and South waxed hot, every young man in the South 
had his opinion, and expressed it freely. When war seemed 
inevitable, each one asked himself the question, "What am I 
going to do about it?" and he answered it with his musket. 
He fought, not as ai part of a great engine of destruction, 
but as an individual, as a citizen whose every blow helped 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 111 



to free his people from the invader. This individualism 
made! him a superb fighter, though it sometimes interfered 
with his efficiency as a soldier. So was it with his sires of 
the Revolution. 

VI 

"Ole Master" 

No civilization has ever been more misunderstood than 
that of the ante-bellum South. Even some of our own 
people have unintentionally misrepresented it; while our 
enemies have caricatured and maligned it. The object 
of this chapter is to steer between these two extremes and 
tell the truth. 

Some Southern writers have treated the life of the old 
Southern planter as a beautiful dream, or a realm of ely- 
sium; others, as an ideal of social and domestic bliss. 
Neither of these views is the correct one. 

Enemies in America and in Europe have painted the ante- 
bellum South as a land of oriental ease and luxury, where 
the planter led a life of effeminacy and indolence, such as we 
read of in stories of the Persian kings and nobles, the 
planter reclining lazily on richly-embroidered divans and at- 
tended by retinues of trembling slaves, who fanned the 
haughty despot as he lay on his downy couch, and expected 
him at any moment to order them to execution. This is as 
true as the tales of the Arabian Nights or as the stories of, 
Baron Munchausen. 



112 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

The planter's life was neither a beautiful dream nor an 
ideal of social and domestic bliss. It had its beautiful, its 
charming features; and its social and domestic joys were 
many. It had some charms which can never be adequately 
described and which can never be seen again forever. It had 
also its shadows, its burdens, its responsibilities; and these 
shadows were so dark, and the burdens and responsibilities 
so heavy, as to preclude. the idea of its being an "ideal of 
social and domestic bliss." Moreover, there were too many 
stern realities connected with it to permit us to regard it as 
a dream of any character. Furthermore, the responsibility 
of owning and of caring for so many human beings weighed 
heavily upon the planter and his family, so that emancipa- 
tion was a glad relief to many. 

A planter, in short, was a very real and a very practical 
man of business, a man of affairs, wide-awake, intelligently 
busy. To get food and clothing for his family and his ser- 
vants, he must exercise the same habits of industry, watch- 
fulness, and thrift that are required of business men in other 
callings. If he did not get up at daybreak, he had employees 
who were paid to do so for him ; and he was out on his plan- 
tation earlier than most of the business and professional 
men of our money-making cities. 

He kept his eye on the grain market, the tobacco market, 
and the cotton market. He studied his soil, knew the pro- 
ducing power of every field, exchanged ideas with his neigh- 
bors, and developed a wonderful sagacity. He led an earn- 
est and "strenuous" life, but kept himself well and hearty 
by joining in the sports and diversions of his family. In 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 113 

whist, chess and backgammon, he was an expert, could lead 
a pretty girl handsomely in the Virginia reel, and was so 
full of "wise saws and modern instances" that young people 
often preferred to listen to his conversation rather than 
steal out on the porch and talk slang and nonsense to one 
another. 

The great rendezvous were the stores and the churches. 
A country store was a sort of academy. There the planters 
met in groups — accidentally on purpose, as it were — and 
discussed the latest news, the questions of the day, the tariff, 
the slavery agitation, the last debate in Congress, and with 
great intelligence and discrimination exchanged opinions, 
and assessed the abilities of politicians and of statesmen. At 
church, before and after service or "preaching," the same 
scene was enacted. 

A plantation was a veritable beehive. In many cases, the 
only drones were some negro slaves who would not work 
and who had such a bad reputation that no one would buy 
them, or some who were too old to work and were cared for 
by the master. 

Idle planters there of course were. A good many wealthy 
men led very easy lives, and left most of the work to over- 
seers and managers. But the statements made in the fore- 
going paragraphs of this chapter apply to untold thousands 
of men that had to work for a competent support for them- 
selves, their families, and their dependents. 

"Ole Marster's" sons inherited his business capacity. Be- 
ing constantly thrown with inferiors, they learned the 
habit of command, of leadership. These facts help to ac- 
8 



114 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

count for the preeminence of the South in statesmanship 
and on the field of battle. On the other hand, the man that 
is thrown with inferiors continually is apt to become self- 
opinionated and dictatorial, even proud and arrogant. So 
was it quite frequently with the colonial Cavalier and his 
descendants, and with others of less noble lineage. Pride 
and haughtiness led to quarrelling and duelling. Duelling 
brought censure and even contempt. The whole generation 
of "first families" were ridiculed and hated in some quar- 
ters, and so the "root of bitterness" troubled the nation. 

VII 
"Ole Mistis" 

The busiest body on the whole plantation was the 
"Missis," or "Ole Missis," or "Ole Mistis," as the ser- 
vants called her. Busy? Yes, busy to the very elbows. 
Busy does not express it. No, busy is a trifling, i npecunious 
word when applied to "Ole Missis." Busier than "Ole Mars- 
ter;" for, if his "work was from sun to sun, her work was 
never done." Busier than "Mammy;" for, after the children 
were all asleep, she could go to bed and sleep all night, un- 
less one of the children had the croup or a spasm. Busier 
than "Uncle Joe," "Uncle Henry" and the rest of the, 
trusted field-hands; for they sat by the fire dozing and 
smoking and praying and humming hymn-tunes, while 
"Ole Missis" was busy with a thousand and one things that 
had to be attended to before the house and the "quarters" 



THE HOME 8 THAT MADE HEROES 115 

and the cows and the pigs and the chickens could settle 
themselves down for a good night's rest. 

"Ole Marster" might know something; but "Ole Mistis" 
knew' everything in heaven above and in the earth beneath 
and in the waters under the earth. 'From her opinion there 
was no shadow of dissent. Her decision on any point was 
absolutely final, more infallible than the pope's, more bind- 
ing than that of any of the great councils of Christendom. 
In the dressing, basting, and roasting of a turkey, her 
opinion was law. On mince-meat and pastry, she had a 
patent, left to her by her mother and inherited by her from 
bygone generations. As to how many eggs a pullet or an old 
hen ought to lay at such a season, her opinion was quoted 
all over the plantation with as much awe as a text of Scrip- 
ture. 

She was the genius loci, the goddess, or rather the queen 
of this little kingdom. In the domestic department, she was 
supreme, her husband being only Prince Consort, with no 
voice in the government. Her executive ability was equal 
to her husband's. They were like two monarchs living in 
the same palace, but ruling different kingdoms. He might 
call upon her to share the burdens of his administration, 
and even leave many matters to her decision ; but he would 
not dream of interfering with her right of eminent domain 
in the culinary and domestic department. Thus she became 
a veritable statesman. She had the masculine abilities of an 
Elizabeth combined with the feminine graces of a Victoria. 

From both parents, therefore, the children inherited exec- 
utive ability, a talent for administration. The girls, too, were 



116 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

trained by the mother to assist in the affairs of state. The 
sons acquired habits of command, caught their father's 
methods, and learned to wield authority. Thus the daugh- 
ters were fitted to become the queens of some younger plant- 
ers, and the sons were equipped for writing constitutions, 
guiding cabinets and congresses, and leading armies on the 
field of battle. 

VIII 

The Planter Civilization 

This activity on the lazy old plantation may be news 
to some readers. Let us supplement our statements with 
facts given by the late Henry W. Grady: "In material as 
in political affairs, the old South was masterful. The first 
important railroad operated in America traversed Carolina. 
The first steamer that crossed the ocean cleared from 
Savannah. The first college established for girls was 
opened in Georgia. No naturalist has surpassed Audubon : 
no geographer equalled Maury; and Sims and McDonald 
led the world of surgery in their respective lines. It was 
Crawford Long, of Georgia, who gave to the world the 

priceless blessing of anaesthesia 

Though it is held that slavery enriched the few at the gen- 
eral expense, Georgia and Carolina were the richest states, 
per capita, in the Union in i860, saving Rhode Island." 

These facts are stubborn, and refute the charge of in- 
dolence and effeminacy. If mathematical facts will weigh 
more with some readers, however, let us give them a few 
statistics. The census of 1850 shows that in that year there 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 117 

were as many Southern whites as Northern engaged in 
laborious occupations. Between 1850 and i860, the South, 
with only one-fourth of the white population, built 2,850 
miles more of railroad than the New England and Middle 
States, her rate of increase in the ten years being 400 per 
cent; theirs, 1 00 per cent. In the same period of ten years, 
she made 24 per cent increase in manufacturing flour and 
meal; about 35 per cent increase in manufacturing lumber; 
in steam engines and machinery, gained over 200 per cent, 
while the rest of the country gained 40 per cent; in cotton 
manufacturing, gained $1,000,000 in the ten years. 

Is this indolence and thrif tlessness ? 

Again: the South, in 1850, had 30 per cent of the bank- 
ing capital of the country ; 44 per cent of the assessed prop- 
erty of the United States ; 45 per cent of the live stock ; she 
grew over half the total corn crop; had 56 per cent of the 
hogs and sheep. Besides producing all the cotton, sugar, 
rice, and molasses, she raised more than half of all the agri- 
cultural products. She slaughtered 33 per cent of all the 
animals killed. She did 6j per cent of the home manufac- 
turing, owned one-third of the farm values, and increased 
their assessed value more than $1,300,000 in the decade be- 
tween 1850 and i860. The South was richer per capita, 
including slaves, who owned no property, than New Eng- 
land and the Middle States.* 

So much for the mathematical and statistical argument. 
We, however, prefer the physiological and ethical argument, 
the "like-begets-like" theory of the subject. After water 



♦For most of these statistics, we are indebted to the valuable article of Gen. Stephen 
D. Lee, in the "Confederate Military History," Vol. XII. 



118 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY, 

rises above its level, after the pygmies of Lilliput produce the 
giants of Brobdingnag, and after men learn to gather grapes 
from thorns and figs from thistles, we may begin to believe 
that the heroes and the constitution-builders of the South 
are sprung from "butterflies of aristocracy." 

"Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn," was said to 
them of old, ages ago. For us to-day, it is none the less 
wholesome counsel. We of the South are sprung from a 
race which providence seems to have chosen as the great 
torchbearers of civilization in the modern centuries. The 
great Anglo-Saxon race which settled the commonwealths 
of the South has, in a most marked degree, the capacity for 
civilization, and, since it stepped upon the arena of history, 
has never failed to produce leaders to meet the great crises 
of the ages. Egbert, Edgar, and Alfred the Great, in the 
Anglo-Saxon era ; Henry the Second, the first and third Ed- 
wards in the Middle Ages; Henry the Seventh, Elizabeth, 
Washington, and Lee in the modern era — such men this race 
produces as they are needed. Put the Anglo-Saxon on an 
island in the sea, and he will soon write a constitution and 
build a commonwealth. 

From this sturdy, potential stock, sprang the founders of 
Virginia, of Georgia, and of the Carolinas. Engraft upon 
this a twig of the Scotch-Irish, German, and Huguenot stock 
— men who, like the Anglo-Saxon, know how to suffer and 
be strong — and you have a race with an inborn love of free- 
dom and a hatred of tyranny, a race that will plant com- 
monwealths to stand forever. 

The man of this race has the leaven that leaveneth the 
whole lump. He bears within him the fermenting power 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 119 

that buoys him up with a mighty frenzy, with an insatiable 
desire to go and tell all men the great message committed to 
his keeping. He will strike into the pathless desert, drive 
the panther from his covert, and expel the native denizens 
of the forest. A born ruler and organizer, nothing can stay 
his progress. Difficulties but whet his courage ; obstacles but 
speed his march. Of the fathers of the South, all this is 
eminently true. Struggles with the Indian on the frontier, 
grim contests with jealous neighbors, fierce grapplings with 
the powers of nature yielding reluctantly to axe and hammer 
* — all but tried his metal and trained his muscle. 

IX 

The Cavalier and the Puritan 

In the settlement of the old Southern commonwealths, 
the Cavalier element was prominent. That all the people 
of the South are sprung from the gentle classes of Eng- 
land is claimed by no sane person; but we may say that 
many old families of the Southern states are of Cavalier 
ancestry. 

And never have men been more caricatured and misrep- 
resented than these Cavalier forefathers. Even some of our 
Southern writers have dubbed them "butterflies of aris- 
tocracy," and have thus played into the hands of our tra- 
ducers. Many histories represent the "Pilgrim Fathers" of 
New England as a band of self-sacrificing missionaries leav- 
ing comfortable homes in England to christianize the sav- 
ages of the American wilderness, and treat the early set- 



120 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

tiers of Virginia as idle adventurers coming to a new 
world to see the sights, and recoup their shattered fortunes 
by shipping turkeys and bogus gold dust to expectant mul- 
titudes in England. Both statements are untrue and pre- 
posterous. 

The original settlers of Plymouth went from England to 
Holland, and came from Holland to America. In leaving 
England, they were refugeeing from royal tyranny and 
priestly despotism. After living in Holland a while, they 
found that their children were becoming weaned away from 
the customs and the language of the mother-country, and 
becoming tainted by the vices of the continent, and they 
realized that they themselves, the older generation, were at 
a great disadvantage in trying at their age to learn a new 
language, and to establish themselves in a new country 
where all avenues to prosperity were already crowded. Nat- 
urally, then, they looked towards the new colonies of Eng- 
land. In the virgin forests of America, they might breathe 
the air of freedom, worship as they pleased, and ship their 
surplus produce to the mother-country.* When opportunity 
offered, they would try to convert the Indians to Christ- 
ianity. 

These Puritans of New England were a brave, noble, in- 
domitable people. During the era of Stuart tyranny, their 
numbers were greatly increased by immigration; they, too, 
hated tyranny and loved freedom. 

After the overthrow of Charles I and his party, many 
Cavaliers flocked to Virginia. Between 1650 and 1670, the 



♦Lectures of the late Prof. Herbert B. Adams. 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 121 

population of Virginia increased from 15,000 to 40,000. 
From some of these Cavaliers afterwards sprang George 
Washington, George Mason, the Lees, the Randolphs, Ed- 
mund Pendleton, James Madison, James Monroe, and 
other great patriots of America. These "butterflies of aris- 
tocracy" produced a race of giants. 

Never has man been more travestied than the Cavalier. 
Because he wore a satin doublet, a slashed waistcoat, ruffles, 
and powdered his hair, he has been represented as a trifler 
and an adventurer, though under his slashed waistcoat 
there beat a loyal and noble heart, true to king and country ; 
and though in the service of both — according tq his views 
of duty — he fought brilliantly under Rupert, Bacon, Wash- 
ington, and Lee. As a religionist, the Cavalier was, we ad- 
mit, not as zealous as the Puritan. He loved his church, 
and would fight for it bravely and bitterly. In the details 
of Christian living, the sincere Puritan was no doubt su- 
perior; but the Puritan system, by adopting religion as a 
badge of office and as an avenue to social importance, put 
a premium upon hypocrisy, so that the class of men always 
despised in the South often rose to prominence in other 
sections. This sad fact, the genius of Hawthorne has her- 
alded to unborn generations. 

Both Puritan and Cavalier have much to be proud of. 
Both have a noble history. Both migrated to America, to 
escape tyranny and to breathe the air of freedom. Unfortu- 
nately, however, they brought their animosities with them, 
and on this new soil nursed the old grudge to keep it warm. 

Neither by himself can make an ideal nation; the two 



122 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

united can build an eternal commonwealth. In the blending 
of these two noble strains of blood lies the secret of our 
future greatness. The Puritan has the solidity, the stolidity, 
the seriousness, yes, even the moroseness of the Anglo- 
Saxon; the Cavalier has the buoyancy, the hopefulness, the 
vivacity of the Norman. Both have an inborn love of free- 
dom, a sense of fair-play, and a hatred of tyranny. The two 
together could produce a people like that which gave jury 
trial to the world, and conquered the French nobility at 
Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt. 

In the olden days, the sections as a whole did not know 
each other, though our statesmen, as already seen, met, de- 
liberated together, and honored one another. It is time the 
past were dead and buried; but, before that can come to 
pass, there must be apology and reparation for insults and 
injuries inflicted. The dead — they shall arise at the last 
trump ; we cannot bring them to life again ; but we can fol- 
low Zaccheus,* the small of stature and the exceeding great 
of soul, who said, "If I have wronged any man, I will re- 
store to him fourfold." Such apology and reparation is 
both manly and divine; who will make it? 

■There are signs of a better day. The light is even now 
breaking in the east. A Massachusetts senator t has said in 
print that, at the formation of the Union, "each and every 
state had the right peaceably to withdraw." Another Mas- 
sachusetts leader J has said, more recently, that in the great 
war, "both sides were right." Mr. Roosevelt, some years 



*See Luke 19 : 2-8. 
+Henry Cabot Lodge. 
JCharles Francis Adams. 



TEE EOMES TEAT MADE EEROES 123 

ago, said that the Southern soldiers were superior to the 
Northern, and that Lee was a greater soldier than Grant. 
Mr. Cleveland has very recently declared that the South 
alone can solve the race problem. Prominent men and lead- 
ing journals are endorsing some or all of these statements, 
more or less vindicating the South's opinions and actions. 

These are all hopeful signs, and an "era of good feeling" 
may be drawing near. Zaccheus is up the tree, and he will, 
we hope, soon come down and utter the noble words quoted 
in an earlier paragraph. 

X 

The Yeomanry of the South 

The Cavalier element gave tone and elegance to South- 
ern society. Below it in the social scale, but not sep- 
arated by any impassable line and not in any cring- 
ing subjection to it, was the sturdy yeoman class, 
men of brains and of manly independence, who followed 
the Cavaliers against Berkeley, against George III, and, 
later still, against the encroachments and the invasion of 
former friends turned into enemies. In all these crises, this 
sturdy class have proved themselves worthy sons of the yeo- 
manry of England. Both the Cavalier and the yeoman of 
the South have always known their rights and, knowing, 
dared maintain, and have taught, and still teach, their sons 
to face the tyrant, whether priest or potentate, king or cabi- 
net. 

The yeoman of the South has never been despised be- 
cause he was a yeoman. From this stock have sprung many 



124 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

of the greatest soldiers and statesmen of the South, men 
whose names are household words from the Potomac to the 
Rio Grande. 

Between the classes of society no hard and fast line has 
ever been drawn in the states south of the Potomac. Ability 
and genius, if united to character and gentility, have always 
been honored even in much maligned Virginia and South 
Carolina. 

On no other point has so much stuff and nonsense been 
said and written. This or that city has been held up to scorn 
and ridicule for not admitting such and such a man into its 
elite society. In these charges, there is usually no scintilla 
of real truth. If an eminent self-made statesman, littera- 
teur, or soldier has been coldly treated by any Southern com- 
munity, it can be easily found out, on a quiet investigation, 
that there was some good and sufficient reason — something 
that would cause him to be coldly received by good and pure 
people of other sections. 

Most of the talk about the haughty old aristocrats of Vir- 
ginia is utterly without foundation. In Williamsburg, for 
instance, long famous as a centre of elegant culture and of 
the most refined society, there were the most pleasant re- 
lations between the classes. A respectable mechanic was on 
the most cordial terms with gentlemen of the best birth and 
breeding. The old Virginia gentleman "hobnobbed" with 
his more humble neighbors, and assumed no airs of super- 
iority. In Virginia to-day the same state of affairs exists. 
A gentleman, sure of his position, is neither too proud nor 
afraid to be on the most pleasant relations with neighbors 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 125 

who move in spheres of society lower than himself. A few 
snobs look down upon honest workingmen, and assume an 
air and a tone of superiority; but they are soon labeled by 
all classes as "poor white trash" who have pushed their way 
into some position too big for their small dimensions. 

While the most neighborly feeling existed between the 
classes, the gentry of the South rarely married out of their 
own circles. A self-made man might be received into the 
best society, but even to a man of unusual promise there 
often would be called a halt when he spoke of marriage. 
The old "first families" were in this matter very exclusive. 
"Since the war," however, a great change has taken place in 
such matters. Thousands of the best families of the South 
have intermarried with what are called "very plain" people. 

The stout yeoman class is forging to the front rapidly. 
They are, in many cases, educating their sons and daughters, 
fitting them to become associates of better-born young men 
and women, and intermarriage between the old and the new 
families is very common. 

In public life, also, the self-made men are taking the lead. 
Some of the most prominent public men in the South to-day 
are of humble origin. So is it in educational matters. Many 
of the rising scholars of the South can claim no connection 
with the old "first families." In many of the colleges and 
universities, the faculty are "making silk out of sows' ears," 
and the sons of the old families are either conspicuous by 
their absence or notorious for their idleness. Exceptions 
only prove the rule. 

All these facts are attracting the notice of many thought- 



126 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY, 

f ul men and women. He who runs may read the signs of a 
great social revolution in the old Southern commonwealths, 
and in none is the revolution more noticeable than in the 
much-maligned state of Virginia. Merit, not blood, is now 
the measure of manhood. 

Out of this blending of sturdy yeoman blood, refined 
by education, with the old blood, humbled by adversity yet 
retaining its self-respect and its great traditions, will spring 
a new and vigorous stock, to make the South blossom like 
the rose, politically, commercially, and mentally. History 
repeats; itself. In ancient Rome, the blending of patrician; 
and plebeian made a nation that conquered the then known 
world. 

XI 

Truth, Purity, and Piety 

In the South of the earlier periods, purity in woman and 
honor in man outweighed blood, wealth, and social po- 
sition. The purity of the women was required to be ab- 
solute. A divorce was almost unheard of, is not to this day 
permitted in South Carolina, and in most Southern com- 
munities is even now almost a social stigma. That a South- 
ern lady should be divorced from one man in the morning 
and marry another in the afternoon is practically unthink- 
able. As soon think of a Southern girl's marrying her 
father's negro driver. One is illegal ; both are monstrosities. 

Every Southern boy was taught to tell the truth, to honor 
woman, and to respect religion. 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 127 

Out of the old Southern honor system, by an exaggera- 
tion such as produced the knight-errant of the days of chiv- 
alry, sprang the "code duello," the so-called code of honor. 
While undoubtedly a perversion, duelling had its basis in the 
right soil, that is, in the idea that a gentleman must keep 
honor bright. Happily for all, it has now almost passed into 
oblivion. 

How any man can read history and then abuse any one 
section is simply amazing. Our ancestors both in America 
and in England, if judged by present day standards, would 
have to be declared heartless and diabolical. As said else- 
where, the eighteenth century was very brutal. The very 
men that revolted, against England and fought so bravely, 
permitted honest laborers to be shut up in loathsome prisons 
because they owed a bill to some merchant. While crying 
out against England for confining their countrymen in 
prison-ships and hulks, the Americans of the Revolutionary 
era tolerated in their debtors' prisons deeds of cruelty "in 
comparison with which the foulest acts committed in the 
hulks sink into insignificance." About this time, the North- 
ern states were taking steps towards freeing the negroes. 
Because the South moved more slowly, some Northern 
people waxed warm with "righteous indignation," not 
sweeping their own house first of such things as the Newgate 
prison and the prisons at Northampton, Worcester, and 
Philadelphia, the stories of which, as told by the Northern 
historian McMaster, read like exaggerations of the worst 
chapters of Uncle Tom's Cabin. "Glass Houses"— you re- 
member the proverb. 



128 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

The South, too, had her debtors' prisons. She, too, was 
far less merciful than she is to-day. Though very often 
done mercifully, the whipping of slaves was sometimes cruel, 
the overseer being often of a class that has always dis- 
liked the negro worse than the higher classes have ever 
done. 

If negroes were sometimes whipped to death in the South, 
they were sometimes burned at the stake in the North. If 
in our day, they are sometimes lynched in the South for 
crimes too heinous to discuss in this volume, the guilty ones 
alone are dealt with; while in the North whole negro set- 
tlements and communities are mobbed and burnt for the 
offenses or the crimes of individuals. The negro shows his 
preference by staying in the South. There he can make an 
honest living without interference, and is not punished for 
the sins of others. 

In religious matters, the South was conservative and or- 
thodox. Atheists and free-thinkers were almost unknown; 
the thousand isms of other sections were hardly dreamed of. 
All gentlemen respected religion and subscribed to its sup- 
port. The South has always been a church-going people. 
The churchyard on Sunday morning was a rendezvous for 
all classes, and the slaves were welcomed to a special gallery. 
There were, we believe, more accommodations for public 
worship in the South than in the North, more seats in pro- 
portion to population. 

Southern men hated hypocrisy and cant ; and many a man 
staid out of the church because he was afraid he might 
bring discredit upon religion. Deception in any form was 
not tolerated by the despised Southern code-of-honor. 






mtmummm 



wli 




ANDREW JACKSON 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 129 

Gambling used to be a national amusement in America. 
To play for money, for a slave, even for a house and lot, was 
good form for many generations. To cheat at cards, how- 
ever, was a sin beyond forgiveness; and this neat distinc- 
tion is still drawn in some quarters. In our day, playing for 
money is no longer common in the South, but ladies in some 
quarters have substituted prizes. The gambling propensities 
of the men find their outlet in the stock exchanges of the 
large cities, and buying "futures" is confined to no section. 
Who shall throw the first stone at the old Southern gentle- 
man for gambling and betting? He who does so must be 
sure that he himself is not a worse offender. 

The honor system applied to the card table also. A debt 
incurred there was regarded as a debt of honor, and was as 
promptly paid. 

History shows conclusively that civil wars — and our great 
war was a civil war in its moral aspects — have a disastrous 
effect upon the morals of a people. This all students of his- 
tory must admit, if they are candid. And yet what a sub- 
lime spectacle is presented by the old commonwealth of Vir- 
ginia in her attitude towards her creditors ! See how he- 
roically she bends her shoulders to a burden that she might 
refuse to carry. With her schools and colleges needing 
hundreds of thousands, with her great heroes lying in un- 
marked graves, unable to make a good appearance among 
her sister states at national exhibitions or to advertise her 
resources adequately at the Tercentenary Exposition, 
she has recently (1901) obligated herself to meet an enor- 
mous increase in the annual interest on a debt which she 
9 



130 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

might have repudiated, if the honor of her men had not re- 
volted from such a measure. 

" Still in our ashes live their wonted fires." 

We do not, however, claim that our people are perfect. 
We must be candid enough to admit that the same fearful 
convulsion that so demoralized the men of the North and of 
the West had some bad effects upon the generation just be- 
fore us, and also upon us and our contemporaries. If men 
of high standing in other sections could take our pictures, 
our pianos, and our family silver, and send them home under 
the name of "trophies," it is very probable that the war 
somewhat unsettled our moral vision; and all hi$tory proves 
that the moral effects of a civil war wear off more slowly 
than the material. After making all fair and truthful con- 
cessions, we still have a great deal to be proud of and to 
thank God for. The noble effort of Virginia to settle her old 
debt honorably has already been referred to. What grander 
sight has ever been seen than Wade Hampton's courteously 
but firmly declining to let the people that idolized him re- 
build his house when it was destroyed by fire ? Did General 
Lee sell his name to commercial concerns whose affairs he 
could not superintend in person? And noble beyond ex- 
pression was the conduct of Gen. Dabney H. Maury, who, 
though aged and feeble, and impoverished by the war, re- 
fused a salary of $50,000 a year from a well-known lot- 
tery. 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 131 

XII 

Slavery in the Sotrth 

No feature of Southern life has been more misrepre- 
sented and misunderstood than African slavery. For 
a long time, the enemy and the slanderer did most of the 
writing. They deluged the periodical press and the book 
market with tons of misrepresentation and abuse, while our 
Southern forefathers could not gain a hearing. The forum, 
the senate chamber, and the pulpit, also, rang with denun- 
ciation of the "peculiar institution," and, by gaining the ear 
of the world, stirred up a whirlpool of feeling against the 
system. The false impression produced by one book has 
never been eradicated. 

Slavery had its sunshine and its shadows. The bright 
side has never been told ; the dark side has been grossly ex- 
aggerated, and painted in colors blacker than the hinges of 
Hades. 

No agricultural laborer has ever had food so nutritious 
and so plentiful as the plantation negro. He had, as a rule, 
a kind and considerate master, self-interest and humanity 
combining to make his master feed him plentifully, clothe 
him comfortably, see that he was not overworked, and look 
after him in sickness. His working days were from two to 
four hours shorter than those of European laborers. 

In this connection, Bishop R. H. Wilmer, of Alabama, 
tells an interesting mule story. A thoroughly honest-hearted 
Northern man once asked him whether negroes were really 
harnessed to a plough and made to do the work of a mule, 



132 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

as abolitionists had told him. The Bishop asked him how- 
much a mule cost, and he said one hundred dollars. Then he 
asked him how much an able-bodied slave to put to a plough 
would cost, and he said a thousand dollars. Then he asked 
him how many negroes it would take to draw a plough, and 
he said, "Eight or ten." "Then," said the Bishop, "apart 
from our good feeling towards the slave, do you think we 
would spend $8,000 or $10,000 where $100 would be suffi- 
cient?" 

When the servants, as they were called, were sick, the doc- 
tor was sent for and "Ole Missis" went to "the quarters" 
with her scales, calomel, and rhubarb. When disabled by 
age, home, food, and clothing were still provided them. No 
wonder they loved "Ole Marster " and "Ole Missis," and 
would follow them to the ends of creation. 

No such system of slavery ever existed elsewhere under 
heaven. Most writers of text-books for our schools and col- 
leges do not feel called upon to make this statement, but pre- 
judice our children against slavery in the abstract, and state 
no extenuating circumstances. They tell about Greek and 
Roman slavery, where the slave w r as often superior to his 
master morally and mentally, but do not tell how American 
slavery lifted the poor African out of his degradation, and 
fitted him to be the noblest character in the most famous of 
American novels. 

A popular text-book on history tells us that, in ancient 
Rome, "sick and hopelessly infirm slaves were taken to an 
island in the Tiber and left there to die of starvation and 
exposure." A class brought up on Uncle Tom's Cabin and 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 133 

other specious books naturally thinks the poor, down-trod- 
den slaves of the ante-bellum South were similarly mal- 
treated. The Northern author, however, does not feel 
obliged to stop and vindicate his Southern neighbors, though 
a Southern writer would almost unconsciously defend his 
people against such base insinuations. He would tell the 
class how "Ole Marster" would go to old Uncle Henry and 
old Aunt Molly, thank them for their long and faithful ser- 
vice, point them to a new cabin just built by the plantation 
carpenters, and tell them to take that and enough land for a 
garden to work when they felt able, come to the meat house 
and storeroom regularly for their rations, and not worry 
about working any more as long as he and his boys had a 
home to give them. 

In this connection, we shall quote Percy Greg, the English 
historian. He made a most careful and disinterested study 
of American history, among other things slavery, and came 
to the conclusion that the Southern negro was the happiest 
agricultural laborer in the world. Greg says : "Releasd from 
anxiety, transplanted to a healthy and congenial climate, 
the animal energies of barbarism combined with the advan- 
tages of a high foreign civilization would have ensured the 
rapid increase of the negro population. But their actual 
rate of multiplication during the first sixty years of this cen- 
tury bore witness to a combination of favorable influences 
such as have never been united save among the most favored 
classes of the highest, most civilized, and most energetic 
European communities. Abundance without luxury, labor 
which could not be made half as severe or effective as that 
of English operatives or Continental peasant-proprietors, 



134 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

the vigilant supervision of Anglo-Saxon intelligence, 
methods, and science, quickened by enlightened interest and 
natural humanity, prevented the infant mortality due to 
parental incompetence or neglect, protected the negro race 
from the waste of life caused elsewhere by overwork and 
underfeeding, by unwholesome habits, and by the thousand 
disorders that keep down the numbers of a proletariate left 
to its own guidance. Cruelty, hardship, discontent, mental 
or physical suffering, ill-usage of any kind, would have 
been, as they are known everywhere to be, powerful prevent- 
ive influences. The vital statistics of American slavery 
alone are conclusive evidence of the material well-being and 
mental ease of the slaves. It does not follow that slavery 
was favorable to the mental or moral character of the negro, 
still less that it was economically, morally, or politically ad- 
vantageous to the masters as a class or to the community as 
a whole. But no economist and no candid student of South- 
ern history can doubt that as human chattels, as intelligent 
laboring machines, as valuable beasts of Jmrden, the slaves 
were well treated and well cared for ; that overwork, exces- 
sive severity, physical hardship, conscious suffering of mind 
cr body, must have been rare exceptions."* 

XIII 

The Feudal Baron 

The planter was a sort of feudal baron. "Vassals and 
serfs" at his side, might be said of him with more 

♦Greg's "United States," Vol. II, p. 352, American edition. 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 135 

truth than poetry. The vassal was the overseer, and 
he was far more apt to be unkind to the servants than his 
employer. Of kind overseers there were many; but, often- 
times, they were either rough men of the South or brutal 
fellows from the North who hated the negro, and rode 
roughshod over him when the master could not catch them. 
Mean overseers helped to bring slavery into discredit. Such 
men, put in charge of cotton and sugar plantations by non- 
resident owners, brought a stigma upon the system that 
helped to overthrow it. Of such a type is Legree in Uncle 
Tom's Cabin. 

Southern gentlemen dealt tenderly with their "servants," 
as they called them; they were often less lenient with their 
own children. The idea of a "lashing planter," as repre- 
sented in the pictorial schoolbook already referred to, is ut- 
terly misleading. By the same reasoning, a 'father' might 
be defined and illustrated as a cruel man who whips his 
children. 

It is estimated that about one Southern man in three was 
a slave-owner. A man would buy one or more servants and 
keep them as an investment and a convenience. A very 
small numbr of men, mostly planters, had large numbers; 
but the planters often hired laborers. 

It is said that only one Southern soldier in ten held prop- 
erty in slaves; of course, many were the sons of slave- 
owners. It is probable, however, that seven-eighths of the 
Southern people were vitally interested in slavery; and its 
forcible and sudden abolition brought utter bankruptcy to 
the whole South. 



136 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

The planter, while giving his servants food and clothing 
in abundance, looked after their moral and religious inter- 
ests. The young girls were carefully looked after, to see that 
they did not go astray. If the overseer or his sons violated 
the planter's code of morals, great would be the latter's in- 
dignation. Aged colored people in the South say that the 
morals of the race have grown much worse since the days 
of slavery. The greatest curse to the colored man of to-day 
is his lack of friendly contact with the white race, the ill- 
feeling due to his unhappy use of the ballot. The colored 
man has no truer friends than his white neighbors would be, 
if scheming politicians had not turned him against them. 

One shadow, as already said, was the maltreatment of 
slaves on the part of some overseers and a few masters. 
These, however, rarely belonged to the higher classes, where 
maltreatment of servants led to social ostracism. Hypo- 
crites, liars, "nigger-traders," as they were called, and men 
that maltreated servants, were universally despised and 
hated. 

Another shadow was the occasional breaking up of fam- 
ilies. This, however, was comparatively rare. We know of 
a few old colored people that were separated from wife or 
husband ; but, on the other hand, we know of many masters 
that would incur very great inconvenience and expense 
rather than permit such separation. Even hiring was 
avoided by many to keep family ties from being broken. 
Southern gentlemen were humane and tender in this matter, 
and the statements to the contrary in many books are to a 
large extent without foundation. 

If the planter was a sort of feudal baron, he was also a 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 137 

patriarch, a judge, and a lawgiver — the Abraham, the Oth- 
tiel, and the Moses of his people. He often dispensed jus- 
tice and settled their disputes in a biblical and patriarchal 
manner. In cases beyond his jurisdiction, he went with them 
into the courts, sometimes using his means and his influence 
to save them from the law, if he thought they should not be 
punished. At times, however, he would let the law take its 
course; and in this case the jury, seeing the slave apparently 
deserted by his master, would mitigate the punishment. 

An industrious, frugal slave could by making extra time 
buy himself from his master. Sometimes they would hire 
themselves from their masters, set up for themselves in some 
trade or business, and pay the sum demanded. By having 
gardens and selling the vegetables, by the skillful use of 
tools, by spinning and weaving, the industrious slave could 
earn no little money, and often lent money to his master. 
These happy conditions, however, were rendered less pos- 
sible by the abolition movement. In self-defense, the South 
had to curtail the number of "free negroes," as they were 
made tools of by the abolitionists. 

As said already, a gallery was set aside in the churches 
for the servants. In addition to this, churches were built for 
them by their owners. Where there were only a few, they 
were often brought into family prayers. No slave class, no 
agricultural laborers, ever had their religious interests more 
carefully attended to. The younger generation, however, 
have little use for the white man's church or his religion. 

Of course there were cruel masters, just as there are cruel 
fathers and cruel husbands. No one despises fathers and 



138 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

husbands as a class, Why, then, should slaveholders have 
been held up to the odium of the world, because some were 
unkind and cruel? 

Elderly colored people talk now with deep emotion of 
their old masters. If they could write books, the world 
would burn Uncle. Tom's Cabin, and curse it as a libel. If 
half the tales of cruelty palmed off on a long-suffering pub- 
lic had been true, the torch and the axe of the slave would 
have disbanded the Southern armies; but, led by the gentle 
hand of woman, the dark battalions moved out, day after 
day, winter and summer, to make the crops that fed the 
masters at the front of battle. . 

The atrocious acts that now lead to lynching in the South 
are emphatically the freedman's license. Before the war and 
during the war, if he did not love, he at least looked up to 
his master and his family, and would not have dreamed of 
laying his hands upon them, save to fondle his "little mistis" 
and "little marster." 

XIV 

The "Lazy" Planter 

Possibly we have turned aside a little from our main 
argument. In this volume, however, no ; paragraph, 
no chapter, is really a digression, if it either directly or in- 
directly, pleads the cause of the South, sets forth her great 
part in the making of our country, refutes any slur made 
against her in history, encyclopedia, literature, by editor, 
poet, or professor. 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 139 

Let us now return to the old plantation, to the throngs of 
servants that used to love "Ole Marster." These great com- 
panies and regiments of slaves had to have good officers; 
and such were found in the planter, his sons, and the over- 
seer. The habit of command thus acquired by the men of 
the South developed leadership, and, as already shown, the 
planter civilization furnished in all crises statesmen and 
soldiers and great military leaders. 

The indolence-and-ease-and-luxury theory was not in- 
vented in any recent period. When the troubles between 
England, and her colonies were waxing serious, some Eng- 
lishmen predicted that there would be slight resistance from 
the Southern colonies. How little they knew of the mettle 
of our colonial fathers! With far greater wisdom and in- 
sight did Edmund Burke, the philosophic orator of parlia- 
ment, read their character. He told England that the people 
of the Southern colonies were much more strongly and stub- 
bornly devoted to freedom than those of the Northern, and 
that all history would show that, in "all masters of slaves 
who were not slaves themselves, the haughtiness of domi- 
nation combines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and 
renders it invincible." 

Proofs of this in abundance can be found in Southern 
history. Who defied the Crown in the Parsons' Cause in 
1763? Who passed the Five Resolutions two years later? 
Who poured out their blood at Alamance in 1771 ? Who 
adopted the Mecklenburg Declaration, drafted the first con- 
stitution of a free American commonwealth, moved and 
penned the Declaration of Independence, and led the armies 



140 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

of the united colonies? The answer rises to your lips: 
"Masters of slaves who were not slaves themselves/' the in- 
domitable and patriotic Southern planters, our forefathers 
of a sturdy era. 

Nor did time enfeeble this mighty stock. In later periods 
this planter civilization furnished political and military 
leaders for several decades, fought England in 1812, con- 
quered Mexico, added Louisiana, Florida, New Mexico, 
California, and Texas to the Union; and in 1861 furnished 
a half a million of the greatest soldiers the world has ever 
seen, and leaders such as Hampton, Beauregard, Forrest, 
Sidney Johnston, and Stonewall Jackson. 

Their sons and grandsons had to fight the battle of free- 
dom again at a later era. The declaration that their fore- 
fathers of 1776 had drawn no longer protected them. The 
constitution of 1787, which the genius of their sires helped 
to perfect, was turned against them. The right of secession, 
which was so glorious when used against England, was an 
unpardonable crime when used against sister states that had 
violated their solemn compact. Instead of the impressment 
of sailors on the high seas, they suffered the impressment of 
servants on their own soil. Instead of maltreatment from an 
unnatural mother, 1ihey have that of brothers in whose de- 
fense they had staked their lives, their liberties, and their 
sacred honor in the War of the Revolution, and whose com- 
mercial interests they had protected at the cost of blood and 
treasure in the second war with England. They will ask to 
be "let alone" and to be permitted to "depart in peace," but 
the answer will be the sword and the fagot. 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 141 

Yes, the lazy planter has saved this country and must 
save it in future eras. But for him, there would have been 
no King's Mountain, no Cowpens, no Saratoga, no York- 
town. To him we owe New Orleans, Monterey, Buena 
Vista. His intelligent grasp of public questions has made 
him a patriot and a soldier. His hours of rest in his library 
give us Masons, Madisons, and Washingtons. When the 
old planter civilization becomes effete, the "traveller from 
New Zealand shall sit upon a broken arch" of Brooklyn 
Bridge "and sketch the ruins" of Manhattan. 

That there were some lazy planters, we admit readily. 
That too. many of them left their plantations to overseers 
and managers, we shall not deny. But, while lingering 
around the fire at the "Old Raleigh," the "Red Lion," and 
other taverns, they were discussing questions of matchless 
importance, and were fitting themselves to write out declar- 
ations and constitutions, and to maintain them on the field 
of battle. 

The lazy planter was not idling. Even when lolling at 
the courthouse or at the tavern, to talk with his cronies on 
the questions of the day, he was but following the bent of 
his genius, his inborn talent for government. Thither na- 
ture herself led him. Thither he went spontaneously as the 
young swan to the pool or as the bird to the air; and from 
his inborn love of public affairs, of politics, if the word must 
be written, was evolved the great Southern supremacy in the 
government — a supremacy which was both the wonder and 
the hissing of some other sections of the Union. 



142 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

XV 

Uncle Tom's Cabin and Othe* Slats 

A beautiful and sturdy civilization, we see, was that 
of the ante-bellum South. If a tree may be judged by its 
fruits, we may well be proud of that era in our social history. 
Let us present it in its true light to our children and our 
children's children. That it was perfect, we do not say ; no 
civilization is perfect. That it had some dark sides, we may 
admit readily. We must not, however, let those that come 
after us read, unrefuted, the hostile books that describe 
the effeminate, indolent Southern gentleman — your grand- 
father; the proud, haughty, brutal "slave-holder" — your 
grandfather again; his trifling, immoral sons — your father 
among them. Let us put our everlasting condemnation 
upon the books that have made the South a byword 
and a hissing among the nations, especially that most 
plausible and most misleading of all books, Uncle 
Tom's Cabin, in which an ideal and almost impossible 
"Uncle Tom," an overseer, Legree, who could not have 
kept his place on a gentleman's plantation, — a Northern 
man by the way — and whippings such as were rarely per- 
mitted, and cruelties never tolerated are held up as types, 
instead of as figments of the imagination .or as monstrosities. 
These things let us teach our children and their children. 
For; the stranger that comes with butter in his mouth and 
war in his heart, let us have ready the retort with which the 
good Bishop Richard H. Wilmer, of Alabama, silenced a 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HEROES 143 

slanderer : ''Uncle Tom, who was, you say, one of the finest 
characters you ever read of, was a slave. Africa did not pro- 
duce him, does not now produce him. Does not the book 
go to show thatj if you want to find the best specimen of 
honesty and piety among servants, you must seek him among 
the slaves ? Eva, you say, is one of the most lovely of her 
sex, gentle and refined, a beautiful character indeed; was she 
not a slave-holder ? Legree, you rightly say, was the worst 
character in the book, a vile and cruel man. Was he not a 
Northern man that came South, trafficked in slaves, and 
maltreated them?" "A profound silence ensued," says the 
good Bishop. 

Uncle Tom we have pronounced an almost impossible 
character. One, and only one, slave measuring up to Mrs. 
Stowe's hero have we ever heard of ; and it would be utterly 
misleading to take such a rare and almost miraculous char- 
acter and use him as representative. 

Many true and faithful old slaves there doubtless were, 
and some of them we have been thrown with. Their very 
virtues are due to their contact with a higher civilization. 
Slavery lifted the African race from paganism and barbar- 
ism, and made thousands of them true to their fellow-men 
and to their Creator. For this reason, men like Stonewall 
Jackson gave it their approval, and men like Jefferson Davis 
defended it in the senate. 

Some colored people are, undoubtedly, better than many 
white people. Colored men and women of fine character 
there are among us. As a race, however, the negro does not 
measure up to any high standard, either intellectually or 



144' HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

morally, and as a race he seems to be lacking in moral re- 
sponsibility. His great need is domestic purity and personal 
chastity. 

XVI 
" Of the Old School » 

We trust that the young reader has caught a view of 
our beautiful ante-bellum civilization. A few repre- 
sentatives of that era are still among us : you have known 
some; the writer, many. Courtly old gentlemen they 
were; noble and queenly women. To sit in their presence, 
hear their musical voices, listen to their talk about "old 
times before the war" was a benediction. Dear old grand- 
fathers and grandmothers, venerable great-aunts and great- 
uncles, even now pass before the mind's eye, and smile gra- 
ciously upon us. Let us, my young reader, imitate their vir- 
tues. If faults they had, let us try to avoid them; yet we 
rather think that ours are a thousandfold more in quantity 
and worse in quality. 

Some phases of their life and character do not come 
within the scope of this book, and will be found in the 
charming volumes of Thomas Nelson Page and other novel- 
ists. A few points we may mention in connection with our 
treatment of the ante-bellum period. 

The highest compliment that is ever paid a man in the 
South is to call him "a gentleman of the old school;" that 
includes everything. It means that he is honest in business, 
is refined in his tastes, is courteous towards his inferiors, is 
chivalrous toward woman, has great respect for religion. 



THE HOMES THAT MADE HE ROE 8 145 

Let us state our recollections of some of these men. 

These gentlemen were polite, but not bootlicking, like 
some of their modern imitators. They were so sincere as to 
seem at times brusque in their manners. They paid their 
debts at the rate of a hundred cents on the dollar, and many 
of them were more than impoverished by paying security 
debts for other people. They hated "short cuts" in business. 
They despised sneaks, hypocrites, negro traders, deserters, 
scalawags, and carpetbaggers. They looked with suspicion 
upon the soft, velvety, smooth-tongued fellow that can get 
into your office, glide noiselessly across the floor, and slip 
his hand, glistening with seal rings, into yours before you 
know that anyone has entered. They were "open and 
aboveboard" in all their dealings. If they played cards for' 
money, it was in a gentleman's parlor, not in a secret cham- 
ber protected by a bribed policeman. They took their tod- 
dies and their juleps, but were not drunkards. They talked 
more sense in one evening than we do in a month. They 
knew more of Horace than we do of Tennyson. They had 
the polish of Chesterfield without his vices. After reverses 
came, they wore sleek, shining broadcloth coats left over 
from old times, because they did not wish, like some of us, 
to owe for a new one — forever. 

This writer, you see, believes in the past. He loves and 
treasures its hallowed memories. He longs for "the tender 
grace of a day that is dead," and feels with the poet: 

" It is not now as it hath been of yore; — 
Turn whereso'er I may, 
By night or day, 
The things which I have seen I now can see no more." 

10 



146 HALF-HOURS JN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

CHAPTER III 
THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 

I 

Early Causes of Estrangement 
(i) LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 

LIFE is made up of lights and shadows. As with men 
and women, so it is with states and with nations. The 
joys of the South in the period already outlined were 
great; but her sorrows were sometimes well-nigh insup- 
portable. She felt at times like an orphan, a foundling, like 
a stranger in her father's house. The Declaration which her 
Richard Henry Lee had "moved," which her Jefferson had 
drafted, and which her Washington had maintained with 
the sword, no longer seemed to protect her in the Union. 
The constitution which her Washington, her Madison, her 
Mason, her Pinckneys, her Davie, her Williamson, her Rut- 
ledge, her Baldwin, and other great sons had helped to draft, 
no longer seemed to protect her and her institutions. Let us 
inquire the reasons. 

We often hear that the war between the North and the 
South was "inevitable." The phrase "irrepressible conflict" 
was coined by a Northern statesman, and soon became popu- 



THE HUNDRED TEARS' WRANGLE 147 

lar in some sections. All such phrases are utterly mislead- 
ing. There is no good, substantial reason why the North 
and the South should have felt a dislike so deep as to poison 
for years the life of the republic and make them stand more 
or less aloof even at the present moment. 

We may admit that there were two distinct civilizations 
on this continent. We may admit that the two peoples dif- 
fered in political ideas, in religious beliefs, in social customs ; 
but such differences did not have to be settled on the bloody 
field of battle, with its years of agony and its centuries of 
hatred. If differences in civilization led to armed conflict, 
the United States would be in civil war incessantly. The so- 
called "gulf" between the North and the South of the earlier 
periods is nothing compared with the yawning chasm which 
at this moment separates the West from all the old centers 
of civilization. 

The ill-feeling between the North and the South is one of 
the oldest, and is the deepest, of sectional animosities. It be- 
gan in the colonial era, and has lasted to some extent to the 
present. Differences in climate, in views of government, in 
pursuits, in religion, do not explain it. In colonial days the 
Pennsylvania Quaker and the New York "churchman" hated 
the New England Puritan, and in the troubles with England 
rallied but slowly to his assistance, but in later eras all three 
combined against the Southern planter. After independence 
was achieved, "Pennsylvania discriminated against Dela- 
ware and New Jersey ; Connecticut and Pennsylvania quar- 
reled over the Valley of Wyoming; New York and New 
Hampshire, over the Green Mountains;" but later on these 



148 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

dislikes were forgotten in the common dislike for the "slave- 
ocracy" of the South. To-day, as a consequence, we have 
the Solid South following the lead of a handful of Northern 
and Western politicians. 

Why, then, this old sectional feeling? Why did Puritan 
New England dislike the planters of Virginia so violently 
that the animosity swallowed up so many local jealousies 
and lasted till the present? 

Various solutions have been offered. Many think that the 
Puritan and the Cavalier, in emigrating from England, 
brought their old grudge with them in the Mayflower, the 
Discovery, the Godspeed, and the Susan Constant. Fiske 
tells us that the New Englander and the Virginian disliked 
each other, the Virginia Cavaliers looking down upon the 
people of New England as a race of shopkeepers, and the 
New Englanders despising the Cavaliers as haughty, domi- 
neering, purse-proud aristocrats, like Squire Western in 
Fielding's History of a Foundling. That this feeling existed 
all history shows us. That the antipathy still exists to some 
extent, we admit candidly. That it alone would have pro- 
duced a war horrible in its proportions, we do not believe for 
a moment. 

A thoughtful scholar of our day puts "spatial separation" 
— that is, distance — among the elemental causes of sectional 
feeling. No doubt better acquaintance might have helped 
matters. Had our earlier generations been better acquainted 
with each other, they might have judged each other less se- 
verely, and been more willing to bear each other's burdens 
and help to solve each other's problems. 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 149 

Another reason often given is "differing social antece- 
dents" in the old country. This presupposes that the whole 
North and the whole South came from different ranks of 
society in the mother country. We know, however, that 
only a minority of the Southern people claimed descent from 
the gentry and the nobility of England. The great mass of 
the Virginians and the Carolinians sprang from the yeoman 
classes. Only a select few were so aristocratic as to excite 
jealousy and hatred. The average Southern family had no 
reason to look down upon the masses of New England. 

Another cause often given is the "difference in local ad- 
ministration;" that is, the New Englanders held to township 
government, government by town meetings, while the 
planters of the South, living in remote country neighbor- 
hoods, adopted the county system. That this political differ- 
ence led to social differences, we of course know. The fact 
that the Virginia planter "ran his course remote from men," 
lived in isolation, and ruled his dependents as a sort of feudal 
baron, did tend to make him lordly and overbearing; but the 
contact between the old Virginia Cavalier-planter and the 
New Englander was in those days too slight to mention. 
Only the leaders took the long tedious journeys across 
Mason and Dixon's line ; the masses never met each other. 

These explanations do not explain. We must seek further 
for a solution. 

Many writers speak of "climatic causes." Not that the 
likes or dislikes of races and of peoples depend directly upon 
the thermometer, but that climate largely determines occu- 
pation; that difference in occupation leads to difference in 



150 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

interests ; and that these in turn lead to a demand for laws 
that injure some portion of the country. 

Most of these causes may have helped to alienate the 
North from the South. Not all of them combined would, we 
think, have brought on a bloody conflict. It was secession 
that caused the war. It was to save the Union that the 
whole North rose to its feet and marched across the Poto- 
mac. Only a few Northern soldiers were fighting to free the 
slaves ; and President Lincoln himself did not interfere with 
slavery until he thought that such action should be taken as 
a war measure to strengthen the North, weaken the South, 
and excite the sympathy of foreign nations. 

(2) VIEWS OF THE CONSTITUTION 

(a) THB LEAGUE OR COMPACT THEORY 

One most unfortunate thing was that the two sections 
came to take opposite and conflicting views of the constitu- 
tion. We say "came to take;" for at first there was no 
strictly sectional division as to the unsettled questions of the 
constitution. At first the New England statesmen were as 
zealous for states rights as the Southern; and we shall see 
later that New England was a stronghold of secession and 
of nullification. 

In 1789, both sections believed that the states were inde- 
pendent sovereignties, and that the Union was a league, a 
compact. Massachusetts so regarded it. In 1804, her legis- 
lature, in asserting the right of secession, refers to the Union 
as a compact. About thirty years later, John Quincy Adams, 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 151 

one of her greatest men, so regarded it. In a memorial to 
Congress by several Northern members, who were vehe- 
mently opposed to the proposed annexation of Texas, 
Adams, the head of the committee, said that annexation 
would be "a violation of our national compact" and "would 
be identical with dissolution." Webster, also, in his riper 
years, used the word compact. After a while, this view be- 
came almost entirely localized in the South, and the North 
adopted the consolidation view of the government. No 
union could have been formed, if the idea of an indissoluble 
union had been emphasized. As we shall see later, both sec- 
tions believed that a state might secede whenever she, not 
others, thought that her rights were violated or her interests 
endangered. 

After a while, the North dropped the league or compact 
theory, except when it suited some state like Massachusetts 
or a group of states — New England, for instance, — to go 
back to it. The South, on the other hand, held on to this 
theory consistently. She argued that thirteen sovereign and 
independent states had carried on war with England; that 
these same sovereign states had drawn up the Articles of 
Confederation, under which our fathers lived from 1781 to 
1788; that thirteen separate states had been recognized as 
free and independent in 1783 by England, France, and 
other nations ; and that nine of these states, acting as states, 
withdrew or seceded from the union of 1781, and set up the 
new union of 1789. So that the South knew that the states 
were older than the Union, and believed that a man's first 
loyalty, his "paramount allegiance," was due his state, not 
the Federal government. 



152 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

This led to a state pride for which the older Southern 
states have ever been distinguished, which few Northern 
states except Massachusetts have ever understood, and of 
which two-thirds of the states know as little as they do of 
Sanskrit. This state pride is still very strong in some South- 
ern states. In earlier periods it was very intense, especially 
in South Carolina and Virginia. It pervades the literature 
of the South, and influenced the views of the people beyond 
all calculation. It led John Randolph of Roanoke to scream 
in his shrill tones across the halls of Congress, "When I 
speak of my country, sir, I mean Virginia ;" led the noblest 
men of the South, with few exceptions, to "go with their 
states" in the great war between the sections; and lent keen- 
ness to the sword of Lee, as it flashed "forth from its scab- 
bard, pure and bright," "beneath Virginia's sky." 

In believing that the states are older than the Union, 
Massachusetts was not behind her Southern sisters. As late 
as 1845, a prominent committee of the General Court (leg- 
islature) of Massachusetts said: "She (Massachusetts) can- 
not forget that she had an independent existence before the 
Union was formed." This fact, however, was long denied 
by the politicians and the publicists of New England ; but oc- 
casionally a candid writer of that section admits it. George 
Bancroft, the eminent Northern historian, says, "The states, 
as they gave life to the Union, are necessary to the contin- 
uance of that life." George Clinton, the eminent soldier and 
statesman of New York, said: "The sovereignty of the 
states, I consider the only stable security for the liberties of 
the people against the encroachment of power." 



TEE EUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 153 

The young men of the South were taught to watch the 
Federal government. There was a deep-seated fear that the 
general government might assume so much power as to re- 
duce the states to mere counties of the Union, as Lincoln 
actually regarded them. This feeling was very strong in the 
South, and was confined to no political party. Jefferson 
Davis was trained under this nervous dread of encroachment 
upon the rights of the states. For the sake of his state, 
Mississippi, he was willing to crucify personal ambition. In 
1846, for example, when the war with Mexico began, Con- 
gress authorized the president to appoint two new major- 
generals and four brigadier-generals, and Mr. Davis, al- 
ready well-known as a soldier, was offered one of the ap- 
pointments. He, however, declined on the ground that such 
appointments were unconstitutional and that state troops 
mustered out for the national defense should be commanded 
by officers either elected by the troops or appointed by the 
governor. 

"A bargain broken on one side is broken on both sides," 
said Webster in speaking of the compact between the states. 
For decades the whole South and a large part of the North 
believed in the league or compact theory and in its corollary, 
the right of secession. When the North broke her "bargain" 
by interfering in many ways with the rights and the property 
interests of the South, the South accepted all kinds of com- 
promises,, instead of fighting forty years earlier than she did. 
When she did fight, the North and the West united solidly 
against her. The odds and the world were against her. 

(b) THE PARTNERSHIP VIEW 

Again, the South regarded the Union as a partnership, as 



154 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

what is called in the business world a "limited partnership." 
Each state contributed a part of her sovereignty. She re- 
served all such rights as were not specified in the terms of 
agreement, these terms being set forth in a paper already 
familiar to the reader as the Federal constitution, adopted 
in 1787. "Reserved rights" was a common phrase in South- 
ern political language. Foremost among these reserved 
rights, but to be exercised only as a last resort, was the right 
of secession. The South did not wish to secede. She always 
loved and honored the Union which she had done so much 
to create and to defend. The right to secede, that is, to with- 
draw from the Union, she reserved as a last desperate meas- 
ure of self-defense, just as every man feels that, in some 
great emergency, to save his own life, he might possibly use 
a pistol against some human being. 

So it is in a partnership. Men do not contribute their 
capital and their services to go into a partnership that cannot 
be dissolved. If the partners differ so widely on questions of 
management that they cannot cooperate pleasantly, they 
dissolve. If one partner continues to overdraw his share of 
the profits, they dissolve. If one partner adopts methods that 
injure the standing and the reputation of the others, a dis- 
solution can be demanded. So with the sovereign states that 
formed the Union in 1789. Our fathers believed that, if the 
powers granted by the states to the Union should be used 
to the injury of the states, the states themselves being the 
judges as to the extent of the injury, they might secede from 
the Union; and many eminent Northern authorities admit 
that on no other terms could the constitution of 1787 ever 
have been ratified. Three states, Virginia, New York, and 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 155 

Rhode Island, adopted it on those express terms, and others 
inferred that there was no objection to the proviso, as no 
state made such objection. 

Nor was the partnership view of the Union confined to 
any one section. For instance, Josiah Quincy, the famous 
statesman and publicist of New England, applied the term 
partnership to the Federal government in a speech in Con- 
gress in 1811. This, by the way, was the first secession 
speech* ever heard in that body. 

The states, then, were thirty-four partners. Fifteen of 
them held property in slaves; the rest had sold out their 
holdings. The nineteen not only condemned the fifteen, but 
declared that owners of slaves should not take their slaves 
into the common possession of the partnership — that is, the 
territories acquired by the blood and money of all the part- 
ners. 

Again: the nineteen passed laws declaring that, if any 
partner traveled with his s^ves through the land owned by 
any partner not holding slaves, the slaves thereupon be- 
came free. This law was upset by the Supreme Court of the 
United States. 

The nineteen went still farther. In i860, they elected as 
president a man who had said in his speeches that this coun- 
try could not remain half free and half slave, regardless of 
the fact that the institution was recognized in the terms of 
partnership, or constitution, and that the Union had been for 
nearly seventy-five years cherishing it and protecting it. 

All these things were palpable violations of the equity 
that underlies all partnerships, and were regarded by the 

•See page 183. 



15 6 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

"cotton states" as justifying their withdrawal from the 
Union. Four other states waited, hoping for a reconcilia- 
tion. In the spring of 1861, however, when Mr. Lincoln 
called for troops, these four refused to march upon their 
Southern sisters, and, rather than do so, joined the Southern 
Confederacy. It is clear then that there were two separate 
secession movements. 

(C) FEDERALISTS AND ANTI-FEDERALISTS 

Very soon after the adoption of the constitution (1787), 
there sprang up two parties holding opposite views of that 
paper. One believed in consolidation, centralization of 
power, at the Federal capital; the other wished to guard 
carefully the rights of the states, make the Federal govern- 
ment the "general agent" of the states, in order to collect 
revenue, to keep the states from trespassing upon each 
other's rights, and to present a united front against inter- 
ference from foreign nations. 

The party last referred to was especially strong in the 
South. Among its earliest leaders were Henry, Mason, 
Monroe, and Jefferson ; and later this party, led by Jefferson, 
swept the country and held sway for over half a century. In 
still later periods, its leaders' were such men as John Ran- 
dolph of Roanoke, John C. Calhoun, and Jefferson Davis. 

This party believed firmly in the right of secession. Some 
of them, Jefferson, Madison, and Calhoun, for instance, be- 
lieved in nullification, that is, the right of a state to set aside 
a law of Congress trespassing upon her rights as a mem- 
ber of the Federal Union. 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 157 

The other, or consolidation, view of the constitution was 
very strong in the North. There it was learned by thousands 
of European settlers, and by them was spread throughout 
the Western and Northwestern states, until it became the 
prevailing view of the American people, and put the states- 
rights people in a minority. Thus the South came to stand 
politically almost alone, cut off from the rest of the Union. 
The North also forgot that thirteen separate colonies had 
rebelled against England, declared themselves independent, 
sovereign states, been recognized as such by European na- 
tions, established a confederacy in 1781, seceded from that 
in 1788, and adopted a new constitution by the votes of 
separate state conventions. Forgetting all this, the North 
came to ridicule the idea of state sovereignty, and her over- 
whelming numbers have enabled her to make this idea seem 
now almost ridiculous. 

The two parties referred to above were called Federalist 
and Anti-Federalist. They were by no means sectional or 
geographical. There were no more zealous Federalists any- 
where than John Marshall, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, 
and George Washington. 

In 1 80 1, the Anti-Federalists made Jefferson president. 
Their name about this time was changed ; they called them- 
selves Republicans, while their opponents nicknamed them 
Democrats. 

When elevated to the presidency, Jefferson was well 
known to believe in nullification, that is, the right of a state 
to declare a Federal law null and void within her borders, 
and also to be in favor of limiting slavery to the old states 



158 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

in which it already existed. His doctrine of nullification 
was never popular. His other doctrine was afterwards 
adopted by the abolition, free-soil, antislavery, and South- 
hating politicians, and did a great deal to bring on the war 
between the sections. 

John Marshall, also, unconsciously forged chains to bind 
his state and his people. Selected as chief- justice by John 
Adams, the retiring Federalist president, this great Virgin- 
ian interpreted the constitution in such a way as to make 
himself one of the few Southern men that have never been 
abused by billingsgate orators of the North, and claptrap 
professors of history. Alas, how limited is human vision! 
If this august Virginian could have foreseen that he was to 
be quoted by men hurling scorn and contempt at Virginia, 
he would have rejected the seductive offers of Adams, and 
like Moses of old would have refused to be called the son of 
Pharaoh's daughter. 

II 
Later Causes of Estrangement 

These different views of the constitution were, as already 
said, by no means entirely sectional. Some of the ablest men 
of the South were Federalists, that is, believed in a strong 
centralized government; but the anti-Federal ideas of 
Thomas Jefferson were far more popular, swept the country, 
and in 1801 put him into the presidential chair. 

These differences of opinion alone might not have led to 
sectional bitterness. Soon the question of tariff thrust its- 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 159 

self into politics, and the agricultural interests of the South 
were seriously overlooked by Congress in legislating for the 
commercial interests of other sections. This produced an in- 
tense feeling, and led South Carolina to threaten in 1832 to 
"nullify," that is, to declare the tariff laws of Congress null 
and void in South Carolina. The planters of the South 
wanted a low tariff. The manufacturers of the North 
wanted a tariff high enough to protect their manufactures, 
that is, to keep them from being undersold by foreigners 
shipping to this country. These opposing needs helped to 
create bitterness between the sections. 

In this connection we should mention the scheme of many 
Northern statesmen to surrender the right of navigating the 
lower Mississippi in exchange for a favorable commercial 
treaty with Spain, then our next door neighbor to the south- 
ward. This angered the South beyond expression, and very 
naturally. Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, in his Winning of the 
West, tells us that the statesmen of the North "thought more 
of our right to the North Atlantic fisheries than of our own- 
ership of the Mississippi valley." So we see that com- 
mercial jealousy helped to increase sectional animosity. 

Territorial expansion, also, caused no little jealousy be- 
tween the sections. The manufacturing states were not will- 
ing to see new territory added to the agricultural sections of 
the country, and very loud threats of secession were made 
by New England when Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico 
were added in that direction. This, however, was partly due 
to other causes. It was due partly to the "balance of power" 
between the sections. It was feared that, when these terri- 



160 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

tories were made states, the South might have too much 
power in the senate. Moreover, when Texas was admitted 
to the Union, there came in another very warm question to 
complicate matters and make some sections bitterly, opposed 
to annexation; viz., the slavery question. 

The South, after a while, found herself in the minority on 
most great questions. Immigration did not seek her shores 
at all generally. New states began to fill up with foreigners 
and with settlers from the old states of the north Atlantic 
seaboard. In Congress, the South was outvoted on many 
important issues. The majority vote seemed to her to be un- 
friendly to her interests, to work against her and for other 
sections, not only in the tariff question, but in "bounties" of 
various kinds, encouraging other sections in their favorite 
schemes to her injury; in selling the public lands for the 
benefit of other sections; in establishing more dockyards in 
the North than was equitable; in giving Southern states a 
very small proportion of the money voted for coast de- 
fenses; and in many other matters calculated to make her 
feel like the stepchild of the republic. 

Again, another danger threatened her. As foreigners 
filled up the new states and adopted the national, the con- 
solidation, view of the government, held so generally by the 
Northern men they were thrown with, the South felt that 
her Union, the Union of the fathers, was passing away ; and 
that she would be far happier if she could have a republic 
of her own and not be lost as a part of a consolidated nation. 

Such sorrows the South had in those ante-bellum days. 
Yet many of our people loved the Union too dearly to think 




JEFFERSON DAVIS 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 161 



of leaving it. Nearly all these questions were, from time to 
time, adjusted or compromised by statesmen of the two 
sections. There was one question, however, which would 
not be settled, which, like Banquo's ghost, would not down ; 
or if compromised at this or that time would, like the ghost, 
appear at the feast to bring terror to the guests. This was 
the slavery question. It was this that proved to be the oc- 
casion, the precipitating cause, of the great war between the 
North and the South. 

This subject we reserve for our next section. Just here, 
however, we pause to say that the North, not being able to 
make much use of slave labor, was sometime ahead of the 
South in the idea of abolishing slavery ; and fanatical aboli- 
tionists and scheming politicians dragged the question into 
politics, insulted and vilified the slave-owners of the South, 
and thus brought estrangement between the sections. Thus, 
various causes were adding to the bad feeling between the 
North and the South, until it culminated in the great war of 
secession (1861-1865). 

Another cause of sorrow to the South was the continual 
violation of the constitution on the part of many states. The 
South stuck to the letter of the constitution. Most of her 
great leaders were "strict constructionists ;" and, as long as 
the Southern states belonged to the Federal Union, as long 
as they were members of this great partnership, most of her 
people felt that the several states should enforce the laws 
passed by Congress and not declared unconstitutional by the 
Supreme Court. A few people believed differently; but the 
doctrine of nullification was never popular with the South 
11 



162 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

as a whole. She saw many Northern states, however, dis- 
obeying the constitution, nullifying acts of Congress, that is, 
refusing to enforce laws of Congress, and even passing bills 
of their own in direct opposition to acts of Congress. Many 
of these "bills were aimed at the South and her domestic in- 
stitutions, their special object being to get rid of African 
slavery by any means whatsoever. After 1850, no less than 
fourteen states thus nullified one bill based upon the consti- 
tution. 

Ill 

The Greatest Cause of Estrangement 

(1) SLAVERY IN THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH 

A few slaves were landed at Jamestown in 16 19 and 
sold to the planters. These excited little interest and no 
ill-feeling. At that time, slavery was common in the 
whole civilized world, even kings and queens being part- 
ners in the slave trade. In 1650, there were only 300 ne- 
groes in Virginia. 

Meanwhile, in New England slavery was becoming well 
established. Indians captured in the Pequot wars were sold 
into slavery, husbands and wives being sold to different mas- 
ters, often at remote distances. Some were burned at the 
stake, says Morris,* the Northern historian. In 1641, when 
the first Massachusetts code of laws was drafted, there was 
enacted the first statute establishing slavery in America. 

Slavery spread' slowly in Virginia. White "indented 



* History of the United States, page 472. (Edition of 1898.) 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 163 

servants," redemptioners, and apprentices were numerous 
and cheap, and African slaves were not especially welcome. 
In 1663, however, the English government chartered the 
Royal African Society, of which James, Duke of York, af- 
terwards King James II, was president. This society, sup- 
ported by the English government, forced the African slaves 
upon the unwilling Virginians, who then and afterwards 
made noble efforts to stop the traffic in human beings. 

Says a well known Virginia writer :* "Virginia, as a col- 
ony, passed twenty-three acts to stop the slave trade. She 
was the first nation (sic) in the world to prohibit it. In 
1782, she passed the act permitting the manumission of 
slaves. It was under her presidents that the slave trade was 
declared piracy. It was C. F. Mercer, a Virginian, who se- 
cured the passage of a resolution that proposed to concede 
to Great Britain the mutual right of search of vessels sus- 
pected of slave trading. Throughout the period from 1776 
to 1832, the subject of emancipation engaged the attention 
of Virginians. Judge St. George Tucker and Thomas R. 
Dew, among others, proposed schemes for emancipation be- 
fore the Legislature. And, that same year, John Tyler pro- 
posed to abolish the slave trad2 in the District" (of Co- 
lumbia. ) 

The noble efforts of colonial Virginia were balked by 
England. Some English noblemen and kings were waxing 
rich on the traffic in slaves, and the acts of the Virginia 
Burgesses were vetoed by royal governors and by monarchs. 

South Carolina was more willing to receive the Africans. 
Her fields were so malarious that white men could not work 



•Lyon G. Tyler in his Tylers. 



164 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

them without great risk to health and life, and no one 
thought of blaming her for buying slaves from the English 
and New England dealers. 

In the eighteenth century, slavery took deep root in 
America, both north and south. By 1740, about 130,000 
Africans had been brought over; by 1776, more than 300,- 
000 ; by natural increase, they numbered probably 500,000 at 
the' time of the Declaration of Independence. At that time 
slavery existed in all the thirteen colonies. A feeling against 
the slave trade had long existed in some quarters, and in 
1769 the Virginia House of Burgesses had made an effort to 
stop it in so far as it affected Virginia ; and George III, in 
the interests of English commerce, commanded the royal 
governor of Virginia to veto the measure. The slave trade 
was very objectionable to the people of Maryland, Virginia, 
North Carolina, and South Carolina. While there was no 
widespread objection to slavery, yet the whole world was ris- 
ing up against the slave trade. This "infernal traffic," as 
George Mason called it, led to the kidnapping of negroes in 
Africa and of whites in Europe, and excited the sympathy of 
mankind. In 181 5, the congress of European nations at Vi- 
enna declared against the slave trade, and denounced it as 
riracy. Against it, too, many American statesmen of 1787 
raised their voices, and wished to prohibit it in the constitu- 
tion. Alas ! "self is all in all." By a combination between 
some Northern men who wished to encourage the carrying 
and the selling of slaves, and some Southern men who 
wished to stock Southern plantations, the slave trade was 
given twenty years' extension; and "thereby hangs a tale." 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 165 

(2) THE NORTH SELLS OUT 

After the Declaration of Independence was adopted, a 
good many Americans began to favor emancipation. The 
Northern states, which had only 40,000 of the 700,000 
slaves, were especially willing to free the negro. Some of 
the states freed their slaves at one time; others, gradually. 
All of the Northern states freed the slaves between 1777 
and 1804; but a great many owners sold their slaves to 
Southern planters in full time to avoid all financial loss by 
emancipation. 

The 1 8th century was, as said elsewhere, heartless and 
brutal. In England, parliamentary votes could be bought 
easily and cheap for cash or for titles. Sir Robert Walpole, 
the first prime minister, invented the phrase, "Every man 
has his price;" and he had good reason to believe it. 

In America, in that century, there was much brutality in 
the treatment of slaves. Even in New England, slave fam- 
ilies were often separated. Young infants interfered so 
much with the usefulness of the mothers that they were 
given away just as puppies are in our day.* New England 
stopped rearing slaves because it was cheaper to buy them. 
White bondmen, "redemptioners," were a drug on the mar- 
ket. They were sold into slavery for a term of years to pay 
their passage across the ocean. 

In the 1 8th century, there were several slave insurrections. 
In 1712, some of the slaves of New York city rose up against 
their masters. They were punished very severely, some very 

*Dr. Guy Carleton Lee. , 



166 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

cruelly, twenty-four being executed. In 1740, an uprising 
in South Carolina had to be quelled by force of arms. The 
slaves there were always more dangerous than those far- 
ther north, and the influence of barbarous negroes from the 
West Indies made the Carolinians exceedingly nervous and 
anxious. In 1741, the slaves in New York city again at- 
tempted an uprising. Thirty-three of them were executed, 
thirteen by burning.* 

Emancipation ideas began in 1688 with the Quakers of 
Pennsylvania. These ideas did not spread quickly to Vir- 
ginia or New England. Between 1767 and 1774, however, 
many people in Massachusetts tried to abolish slavery; but 
the royal governors would not sanction the movement. In 
1769, as seen already, a like movement was suppressed by 
the governor of Virginia acting under explicit orders from 
George III. England would not give up so valuable a 
branch of commerce. 

When independence was brewing, Congress made a move 
towards abolishing the slave trade. On April 6,' 1776, the 
Continental Congress resolved "that no slaves should be im- 
ported into any of the thirteen colonies." It is needless to 
add that this law was constantly evaded by English and 
Northern slave importers. 

In 1784, after independence had been achieved, Congress 
again discussed the slavery question. It came within one 
vote of deciding that after the year 1800 slavery should be 
excluded from all the territory west of the states then ex- 
isting, and above 31 degrees north latitude. This, if passed, 

♦Charles Morris's History of United States. 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 167 

would have nipped the slavery question in the bud; but, if 
the war was "inevitable," as some say in their books, the 
contest would have come on some other issue. 

In 1787, Congress passed the ordinance for the govern- 
ment of the Northwest Territory, in which slavery was for- 
ever excluded from that section. Not only did Virginia 
surrender a queenly domain conquered by George Rogers 
Clark and other sons, but she voted for the exclusion of 
slavery from the territory, so great was her desire to please 
her sister states of the Union. Maryland and Georgia like- 
wise ceded their claims to the general government. One 
clause of this ordinance guaranteed the seizure and return of 
runaway slaves. This same clause was, as said elsewhere, 
incorporated in the Federal constitution of 1787; and its 
continued violation was, as said already, one of the South' s 
sorest trials for three-quarters of a century. • 

This "self-denying ordinance" did not satisfy the Penn- 
sylvania Quakers. In 1790, they petitioned Congress to 
suppress the foreign slave trade, and to take steps towards 
emancipating the negroes. As to the first, Congress referred 
them to article 1, section 9, paragraph 1, of the constitution. 
As to the second, Congress resolved that the question of 
domestic slavery must be left to the individual states to 
settle. 

(3) "WHO DID SIN ?" 

In 1787, the slavery question came near breaking up the 
Union. Many Northern men said that they would not take 
their states into ihe proposed Union if the slave population 



168 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

of the South was to be counted in fixing representation in 
Congress. This led to the so-called "Federal ratio," by 
which five slaves were counted as three persons in the popu- 
lation. Another trouble was the strong desire among both 
Northern and Southern members of the convention to put 
a stop to the slave trade. This was settled by giving the 
traffic twenty years' respite; during which time, Northern 
owners sold out to the Southern planters. The third burn- 
ing question was how to get runaway slaves back to their 
masters. To meet this, article iv, section 2, paragraph 3, 
was put in the constitution; and Fugitive Slave laws based 
upon it were afterwards passed by Congress, only to be ig- 
nored or violated. 

All these compromises proved disastrous. The "three- 
fifths clause" continually tempted the South to encourage the 
importation of negroes, so as to give larger representation 
in Congress, and it lent wings to the numerous slave ships 
owned by English and Northern slave traders. The twenty 
years' respite, accordingly, saw an enormous increase in the 
number of Africans brought to America. The "runaway" 
clause led to untold bitterness between the sections, because 
of its continued and flagrant violations. 

Very few people of those earlier eras regarded slavery as 
morally wrong. Jonathan Edwards, the great theologian, 
owned slaves. Whitefield, the great Methodist divine, left 
seventy-five to a devout sister of his communion. Gen. 
Anthony Wayne, of Pennsylvania, had a plantation in 
Georgia stocked with negroes. In colonial New England, a 
"godly Newport elder always returned thanks, on the Sun- 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 169 

day following the arrival of a slave ship in the harbor of 
Newport, that an overruling Providence has been pleased to 
bring to this land of freedom another cargo of benighted 
heathen to enjoy the blessings of a Gospel dispensation!" 
At a later day, some of the leading thinkers of all sections 
were in favor of getting rid of slavery, among them Thomas 
Jefferson, George Washington, John Marshall, Hugh Wil- 
liamson, George Wythe, Luther Martin, and William Pinck- 
ney. 

Among later leaders of thought, we find such men as 
Francis. Scott Key, John Eager Howard, Bishop William 
Meade, James Monroe, G. W. P. Custis, Wm. C. Rives, 
Henry Clay, and John Randolph. All these men were, how- 
ever, ahead of public opinion. Neither the North nor the 
South as a whole condemned slavery just after the Revo- 
lution. We may add, also, that the leaders referred to could 
never solve the great problem as to what should be done 
with the slave after he had his freedom. The Colonization 
Society sent a few to Africa ; but they were a mere drop in 
the bucket.. The North got rid of her slaves by selling them 
to negro traders who bought them for the Southern planters. 

To censure our ancestors for not abolishing slavery before 
1800 would be preposterous, would be a moral anachronism. 
As well censure Washington for not using the telegraph or 
the telephone. England did not abolish slavery at home till 
1772; and in her colonies, till 1834. If it took her a thou- 
sand years, how shall America be blamed for not doing it in 
two hundred? 

The idea of emancipation took root slowly. As already 



170 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

said, the leaders were far ahead of the people. If left alone, 
Virginia might have shown her Southern sisters the way to 
settle the slavery problem. Her constitutional convention 
of 1829, one of the greatest bodies that ever sat in America, 
came very near voting for "prospective emancipation." In 
183 1- 183 2, the legislature debated the slavery question, and 
came near taking some decisive measures towards emancipa- 
tion. In 1827, North Carolina had a strong leaning in the 
same direction. Georgia was the first state to prohibit the 
slave trade in its constitution. Many earnest people in the 
South longed to see slavery abolished. Great problems, 
however, presented themselves in that connection; and, be- 
fore the South had time to think, there came a shriek from 
the fanatics, that slavery must be abolished immediately, re- 
gardless of property rights, regardless of the constitution, 
regardless of the fearful convulsions that would come upon 
the whole fabric of Southern civilization. Of these anarch- 
ists of freedom, we shall speak in a later chapter. They 
and their followers urged the slaves of the South to rise and 
slay, watch their masters turn pale and tremble as the smoke 
of their dwellings ascended to the skies; and these modern 
crusaders hailed the dawn of a political and moral millen- 
nium which they saw approaching.* 

The attacks of the abolitionists enraged the South. The 
idea of emancipation and of colonization soon vanished. In- 
stead of discussing these any longer, the South fell back 
upon her rights under the constitution, where slavery was 
clearly recognized. 



*From a speech made in Congress. 



THE HUNDRED TEARS' WRANGLE 171 

Two things postponed indefinitely the day of peaceable 
emancipation. One was the invention of the cotton gin 
( I 793) '> the other was the rise of the Abolition party (about 
1832). 

Up to 1793, it took a negro a whole day to clean one 
pound of cotton ready for market. In the year named, Eli 
Whitney, of Massachusetts, invented the cotton gin, which 
would clean a thousand pounds in a day. The effects of this 
invention were incalculable. By one man's labor, the planter 
could clean for market one thousand pounds where he had 
cleaned five or six before. Cotton exports increased pro- 
digiously. They rose from 189,500 pounds in 1791 to 41,- 
000,000 pounds in 1803. Southern lands trebled in value. 
Negroes increased in value proportionately. Southern capi- 
tal went into cotton plantations ; Northern capital, into cot- 
ton factories, and into vessels for carrying the cotton to the 
markets of the world. Eli Whitney thus laid the basis of the 
wealth and preeminence of America. Unfortunately and 
innocently, however, his inventive genius laid the basis of the 
South's wealth in negro slavery ; for, from this time, untold 
thousands of the Southern people, and many Northern peo- 
ple interested in handling the cotton, closed their eyes to the 
moral side of the slavery question. This is human nature. 
This is the same human nature we see around us every day. 
In our day, it is ruining children in factories, grinding the 
faces of the poor widow and of the orphan by paying star- 
vation wages, and in a hundred ways calling down the wrath 
of a righteous Heaven. 

Other evils followed Whitney's great invention. Among 



172 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

them was the increased violation of the law against import- 
ing African negroes. Instead of stopping in 1808, as the 
constitution prescribed, it went on, more or less openly, for 
3 r ears afterwards. Both sections were equally guilty. 

When President Jefferson bought Louisiana in 1803, 
trouble resulted. The Northeast objected to adding so much 
territory to the South, and thus increasing her influence and 
her prestige. Thereupon, threats of secession came from 
New England. That section feared that the addition of so 
much territory to the South would endanger the commer- 
cial supremacy of New England, and create a great trade 
emporium at New Orleans. Some conscientious opponents 
of slavery, moreover, feared that the area of slavery would 
be greatly widened. This, however, was rather a minor in- 
terest. 

Meantime, the number of slaves was increasing in the 
South and diminishing elsewhere. The climate of the North 
was too severe for them. They did not have the intelligence 
to render skilled service in the factories. Under these cir- 
cumstances, it was very easy to dispense with them, and to 
condemn others for not doing so. It is easy to do right 
when it involves no sacrifice : "Self is all in all." 

By 1820, slavery was no longer "a sleeping dog," but 
very wide-awake. When Missouri applied for admission 
into the Union, the slavery question convulsed the nation. 
Finally, a compromise was adopted, admitting Missouri 
as a slave state, but forbidding slavery north of 36 30' 
north latitude. This quieted matters somewhat till 1854; 
but it doomed the South to Egyptian bondage. 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 173 

(4) "THE HIGHER LAW" 

Meanwhile, the antislavery sentiment in the North was 
growing. First gradual emancipation was advocated ; then 
(1832) absolute emancipation of every slave in the country. 
This movement met with bitter opposition even in the North, 
but Garrison and his party of abolitionists were undaunted. 
In 1832, was founded the Antislavery Society; in 1833, 
the American Antislavery Society; later, nearly two 
thousand abolition societies. Congress was flooded with 
petitions. This movement is the second of the two things 
that postponed the day of peaceable emancipation. 

In connection with this movement, sprang up the so- 
called "Underground Railroad." By means of spies and 
emissaries in the South, especially teachers from the North, 
large numbers of servants were taken from their masters 
every year, Virginia being a heavy loser. About 1840, sev- 
eral states passed Personal Liberty bills aiding and abetting 
runaway slaves, and making it a crime to aid in their cap- 
ture — all this in the very teeth of article iv, section 2, of the 
constitution, and of the Fugitive Slave laws standing on 
the statute books of the United States. To meet the charge 
of unfairness and of violation of compact, the phrase 
"higher law" was devised, and soon became a political 
catchword in some sections. When the South pointed to the 
constitution, the abolitionists said that there was a law 
higher than the constitution. Between 1850 and i860, four- 
teen states flagrantly nullified the Fugitive Slave law re- 
enacted in 1850. To argue with such men was a waste of 
breath. There stood the constitution recognizing' domestic 



174 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

slavery and providing for the return of fugitive slaves ; but 
in vain did the South plead for justice and protection. 

(5) A NEW GOD DEMANDED 

We can even now hear the yells and the shrieks of the 
fanatics. The problems that had baffled Jefferson, Marshall, 
and other giants were settled with perfect ease by these 
pygmies; and the means proposed by them was the same 
used by Alexander when he untied the famous knot at 
Gordium — that is, the sword. 

When the Supreme Court decided that slavery was rec- 
ognized by the constitution, they hooted this august tribunal, 
and cried, "Down with the Supreme Court ; down with the 
constitution; we appeal to the 'higher law.' The constitu- 
tion is a league with death and a covenant with hell." 

When Webster, the idol of New England, dared to say 
that the South had some rights in the matter, many de- 
nounced him, saying that he was a Judas Iscariot selling 
himself for Southern votes for the presidency ; and the God- 
given art of the poet was used to hand this great man down 
to eternal infamy wherever American literature is read by 
countless millions. Some blasphemous fanatics boldly said, 
"The times demand, and we must have, an antislavery con- 
stitution, an antislavery Bible, and an antislavery God." 

These fanatics abused and vilified the South, using the 
words "slave-owner," "slave-holder," as synonymous with 
thief, robber, blackguard. What cared they that Washing- 
ton himself had been a slave-holder, and that, until quite 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 175 

recently, some of the best men of their own section had be- 
longed to the hated, "slavocracy ? "* 

Our fathers, however, still hoped for better things; they 
still stood on the rights guaranteed them by the constitution. 

Soon, too soon, these fanatics made a league with the 
politicians. Some of the latter saw that the slavery issue 
might be used in some quarters as a "bloody shirt" to con- 
jure with, and stir up their lukewarm voters. In 1848, a 
very prominent public man of the North said that the 
slavery question was an "irrepressible conflict," and by that 
fearful utterance not only inflamed the South, but encour- 
aged the fanatics to make war upon Southern institutions. 

(6) THE PLOT THICKENS 

The Southern people still hoped for fair treatment, and 
gave up a part of 'their rights in the interests of peace and 
harmony. Some of their leading statesmen, Senator Jeffer- 
son Davis among them, followed Henry Clay in his second 
compromise bill of 1850, which prohibited slavery in the 
new state of California, settled largely by Southern people, 
but left to other territories the power to decide the question 
for themselves.- This compromise act, however, was vio- 
lated by many, and Mr. Lincoln in 1858, in his famous de- 
bates with Douglas, said that "this country could not re- 
main half free and half slave." If a man of his ability could 
thus ignore the rights of the South, what could be expected 
of ordinary people ? 

*It may be stated on high authority that General Grant himself owned slaves after 
General Lee had sold or manumitted all under his control. 



176 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Meantime, Uncle Tom's Cabin had been published 
( 1852). Its one-sided presentation of slavery infuriated the 
South, stirred the North to fever heat, and cut the South off 
still more from the sympathy of mankind. Of this book, 
we shall speak quite frequently. Just here we pause to say 
that its author, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, disclaimed any 
intention of misrepresenting the South or of denouncing all 
slave-holders. She thought that slavery ought to be abol- 
ished, and used the so-called "purpose novel"' to aid in its 
abolishment. Whatever her intentions, her method was 
wrong, and unfair to Southern civilization. The world in- 
ferred that the noble and holy Uncle Tom was a typical 
slave, and that the cruelty practiced upon him was common 
in the South, rather than a monstrosity which would have 
been denounced by every man, woman, and child south of 
the Potomac. 

Two years later (1854), another spark was thrown into 
the magazine. That was the fearful Kansas question. Con- 
gress decided that Kansas should enter the Union unre- 
stricted, and that the slavery question should be decided later 
by its inhabitants. This has been characterized by a dis- 
tinguished writer as "locat option" applied to slavery; and 
it stirred up as much bitterness in the country at large, as 
"local option" always does in small communities. Both 
sides proceeded to induce settlers to migrate to Kansas. The 
abolitionists were very successful in their efforts, and filled 
the new state with a population that voted for an anti- 
slavery constitution. This produced bitterness indescribable. 

In 1856, another scene in the drama was enacted. In 



~ 




HENRY CLAY 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 177 

that year a new party, avowed^- hostile to Southern insti- 
tutions, polled a vote large enough to make the South fear 
that her rights under the constitution would no longer be 
respected. It was the large vote cast for John C. Fremont, 
the Republican antislavery candidate for president, that com- 
pelled the South to believe that she was soon to be deprived 
of the right of taking slaves into the territories, the common 
property of all the states — which would unquestionably be a 
clear violation of the terms of compact or partnership made 
in 1787. 

In the next year (1857), the North felt that she had a 
great grievance. In that year, the Supreme Court of the 
United States decided that a slave-owner might take his 
slaves into the territories just as he took any other property. 
For this decision, the court was abused by fanatics and 
loaded with execration. Especially hated was Chief Jus- 
tice Roger B. Taney, the distinguished son of Maryland. 
This decision, which was delivered in the famous Dred Scott 
case, added fuel to the flame. In discussing this matter, 
even Mr. John Fiske prejudices the young student against 
the South and against the majority of the justices. 

In this contention, the South was still clinging to the 
constitution. Though her claims were usually legal, the 
South was in regard to slavery lagging in the rearguard. 
All the world seemed against her. The whole North be- 
lieved that slavery was as bad as Mormonism. The labor- 
ing men of Europe were against her. The higher classes of 
Europe, not realizing the difficulties of the problem, and not 
knowing how the proud, high-strung temper of the South 
12 



178 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

had been tried by years of abuse and misrepresentation, 
withheld any open sympathy. She was now, instead of 
Greece, "the Niobe of nations." 

In the year 1858, as said already, Abraham Lincoln, then 
rising into prominence in Illinois, declared that "this country 
could not remain half free and half slave." 

In 1859, John Brown's raid stirred the South beyond ex- 
pression. This fanatic, supported by a band of desperadoes 
armed with pikes and other weapons, crossed the Potomac 
at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, seized the arsenal, entrenched 
himself there, and shot down several inoffensive citizens, 
among them the mayor of Harper's Ferry. His object was 
to stir up an insurrection among the slaves, but he met with 
slight encouragement among the negroes. • Captured by the 
United States and Virginia forces, Governor Wise, Colonel 
R. E. Lee, Thos. J. Jackson, and J. E. B. Stuart being 
prominent, he was turned over to the courts, tried by a fair 
jury, and hanged under the laws of Virginia. What fol- 
lowed? Denunciation of Brown throughout the country? 
On the contrary, he was in many quarters glorified and 
lauded as a martyr ; bells were tolled in his honor ; and pul- 
pit, press, and platform denounced Governor Wise as a 
Judas Iscariot, and added Brown's name to the calendar of 
saints, some even comparing him to Christ himself. 

The last statement is sometimes denied by Northern 
writers; but none can deny that the name of John Brown 
was used as a charm to conjure with, and that great armies 
sang him into glory as they marched across the Potomac 
into Virginia. 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 179 

(7) THE LAST STRAW 

This "glorification" of John Brown reduced the South to 
desperation. She did not know what to expect next. Ac- 
cordingly, many of her principal statesmen and numbers of 
her other citizens began to believe that she would never be 
happy again in the Union. Few, however, were as yet in 
favor of secession. 

The patience of the South was not yet exhausted. She 
still hoped against hope. She did not wish to leave the 
Union. It was her Union, and why should she be driven 
out of it as long as life was worth living under its starry 
banner ? 

There is a limit to human endurance, and a time comes 
when patience ceases to be a virtue. The next year, i860, 
this time came to many noble Southerners. The election of 
a sectional president on a sectional platform, that is, the 
election of Abraham Lincoln, who had said in 1858 that 
"this country could not remain half free and half slave," and 
that by a strictly sectional vote hurled against the South" 
and her institutions — this was regarded by seven states as 
an overt attack upon the South ; and, rather than wait to see 
what the new president would do to carry out the policy of 
his party, they fell back upon the right, always reserved and 
never surrendered, of withdrawing from the Union which 
now threatened to use against the states the powers lent it 
by the states; in other words they determined to exercise 
the right of secession. . 

Slavery, we see, was the greatest cause of alienation be- 
tween the sections. Many books and thousands of honest 



180 ' HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

but mistaken men persist in saying that the war was fought 
on the slavery issue ; this is entirely erroneous. The South- 
ern soldier was not righting for slavery, and the Northern 
soldier was not fighting to abolish it. The Southern soldier 
was fighting for his state, at her summons, heeding the call 
of her to whom he believed he owed his first allegiance ; and, 
if there was any mistake, any crime, he was not responsible ; 
"his but to do and die." 

The Northern soldier was not intentionally fighting to 
abolish slavery. The politicians had tricked him into think- 
ing that he was fighting for the Union, now assailed by 
"rebels" and "traitors;" that he was defending the flag, 
lately insulted by "hot-headed South Carolina" and her 
minions. 

The Southern soldiers owned very few slaves, though 
most of them were more or less directly interested in slave 
property. The Northern soldiers cared little for the negro, 
and few would have made war in his behalf. Slavery, then, 
was but an important incident of the war; the real causes 
lie much deeper. 

The same politicians that deceived the soldiers influenced 
Mr. Lincoln. He, too, started out with a high sense of duty 
towards the Union, saying that he had sworn to see that the 
laws of the United States were executed in all the states, 
and that he had neither the wish nor the authority to inter- 
fere with slavery. Erelong, however, he made a complete 
somersault. After the brilliant victories of Lee and Jack- 
son in 1862 had depressed the North beyond expression, 
he issued his famous Emancipation Proclamation 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 181 



(Jan. I, 1863), which was a mere war measure, and would 
have been declared utterly unconstitutional by any Supreme 
Court referred to in this chapter. The United States still 
owes the South two billion dollars for her negroes. 

IV 

The Right of Secession 

(1) NEW ENGLAND PIONEERS OF SECESSION 

In our day, no one ever mentions the possibility of se- 
cession. No matter what unjust laws Congress enacts, 
no man, no newspaper, seriously threatens secession. 
The last suggestion of such a possibility came, we believe, 
from some Western people during the presidential campaign 
of 1896, when William J. Bryan almost swept the country. 

Not so with the generations immediately before us. With 
them, secession was always a possibility, and oftentimes a 
probability. As the ill-feeling between the sections in- 
creased, the probability of secession became greater and 
greater. The South being in the minority in Congress and 
being the injured party, secession became more distinctly a 
Southern doctrine; but we shall show clearly that the right 
of secession was held by eminent men, and by whole com- 
munities, in other sections of the country. 

Secession was first threatened' in New England. While 
the thirteen states were living under the old Articles of Con- 
federation ( 1 781-1788), threats of a New England confed- 



182 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

eration were loud and deep, and prominent men declared 
that, if the Mississippi river were not closed up for twenty- 
five years, the New England states would secede from the 
"perpetual Union" and establish a confederation for them- 
selves. In 1792 and 1794, secession movements began to 
take definite shape. In 1793, Timothy D wight, the eminent 
theologian and the president of Yale, speaking of the threat- 
ened war with European powers, said : "A war with Great 
Britain, we, at least in New England, will not enter into. 
Sooner would 99 out of 100 of our inhabitants separate from 
the Union than plunge themselves into an abyss of misery." 
In 1796, Governor Wolcott, of Connecticut^ declared that, 
if Jefferson should be elected president, he (Wolcott) would 
heartily favor a separation from the Southern states. Gov- 
ernor William Plumer (Plummer), of New Hampshire, one 
of the most famous publicists and writers of the early part 
of the 1 8th century, names many prominent New Englanders 
that were in favor of a dissolution of the Union — the second 
"perpetual Union" (1789). Among them were Timothy 
Pickering, George Cabot, Harrison Gray Otis, Josiah 
Quincy, Roger Griswold, the Lowells, Stephen Longfellow, 
and many other fathers of New England. In 1804, Colonel 
Timothy Pickering said: "The principles of our Revolu- 
tion point to the remedy : a separation A 

Northern confederacy would unite congenial characters, and 

preserve fairer prospect of public happiness 

It (the separation) must begin in Massachusetts." Some 
may say that these are the views of individuals. In 1804, 
the legislature of Massachusetts resolved: "That the an- 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 183 

nexation of Louisiana to the Union transcends the constitu- 
tional power of the government of the United States. It 
formed a new confederacy, to which the States united by the 
former compact are not bound to adhere." Where was the 
right of secession ever more clearly stated? The reader 
will notice, also, that the legislature of Massachusetts 
in 1804 regarded the Union of 1788 aa a compact, and as 
dissoluble for cause satisfactory to one of the parties thereto. 

The high priest of secession was the eminent Josiah 
Quincy, of Massachusetts. In the Congress of 181 1, while 
the bill for admitting the Louisiana territory to statehood 
was under discussion, this distinguished statesman — after- 
wards president of Harvard, — said : "If this bill passes, it 
is my deliberate judgment that it is virtually a dissolution of 
this Union ; that it will free the states from their moral ob- 
ligations ; and, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the 
duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation — • 
amicably if they can, violently if they must." Quincy was 
called to order by Mr. Poindexter, of Mississippi territory; 
but the House, on appeal, decided that a suggestion of se- 
cession was not out of order. Then Mr. Quincy proceeded 
to argue that the Union was a partnership consisting of 
thirteen members, and that, if ten of them admitted a four- 
teenth not acceptable to the other three, the three could de- 
mand a dissolution. 

Hildreth, the Massachusetts historian, says that this was 
the first mention of secession ever heard in Congress. 

Eighteen years later, Quincy was elected president of 
Harvard College. There he served with great usefulness 



184 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

and great distinction for sixteen years ; and we may imagine 
that he taught his views as to the right of secession to 
thousands of the brightest young men of New England. 
The same may be conjectured as to Dr. Timothy Dwight, 
the learned and eminent president of Yale, quoted in an 
earlier paragraph. We shall not be surprised then if se- 
cession views were commonly held in New England from 
about 1810 to about 1850. 

John Quincy Adams says that a secession scheme was 
formed in 1803- 1804, and that a military man was selected 
to lead the armies that might be needed. In 1839, this same 
statesman and ex-president said that separation was better 
than an unhappy and unwilling union. In 1842, he pre- 
sented in Congress a petition from citizens of Haverhill, 
Massachusetts, for a dissolution of the Union. 

Horatio Seymour, the eminent New Yorker, said in a 
public address, October 8, 1880: "In 1812, while the walls 
of the Capitol were blackened and marred by the fires kindled 
by our foes, and our Union was threatened with disasters, 
the leading officials and citizens of New England threatened 
resistance to the military measures of the administration!" 
How Massachusetts and Connecticut refused to send their 
quota of troops, we have seen already. 

John Fiske says : "John Quincy Adams, a supporter of 
the Embargo, privately informed President Jefferson that 
further attempts to enforce it in the New England states 
would be likely to drive them to secession." This was in 
1809. 

The "storm center" of New England secession was the 
famous Hartford Convention. Let us quote Mr. Fiske 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 185 

again: "In December, 1814, some of the Federalist leaders 
met at Hartford and passed resolutions. Among other 
things, they demanded that custom house duties collected in 
New England should be paid to the states within whose 
borders they were collected, and not to the United States. 
This would have virtually dissolved the Union." Mr. Fiske 
puts it very mildly. 

Mr. Fiske says, "Some of the! Federalist leaders." Ho- 
ratio Seymour says, "A convention of delegates appointed by 
the legislatures of three of the New England states, and by 
delegates from counties in Vermont and New Hampshire." 
John Quincy Adams believed firmly that the convention was 
called to dissolve the Union, and that it would have met 
again and done so, but for the closing of the war with 
England (1815). 

(2) LATE NEW ENGLAND SECESSIONISTS 

In 1844 and 1845, tne state of Massachusetts again threat- 
ened secession. When the annexation of Texas was pend- 
ing, the legislature of Massachusetts resolved that "the an- 
nexation of Texas might drive these states into a dissolution 
of the Union." Notice the language, "these states." This 
implies clearly that Massachusetts knew of other Northern 
states that believed in the right of secession. We are not 
attacking Massachusetts and her sisters. If they believed 
that their interests were endangered by the annexation of 
Texas, they had a right to leave the Union. We simply 
wish to prove that belief in secession was not confined to any 
one section of the country. 



186 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

We have shown that New England leaders believed in 
secession. We have proved that a convention representing 
three New England states and parts of others took strong 
secession ground in 1814. We have shown that the most 
influential state of New England threatened to secede in 
1844 and 1845. How, then, can any one say that the North 
did not believe in secession after 1830? Even if this could 
be proved, why should the South be condemned for believing 
in it in 1861 ? Let us, however, trace Northern opinion to 
a later period. In i860, Horace Greeley, the famous editor 
of the New York Tribune, said : "If the cotton states shall 
become satisfied that they can do better out of the Union 
than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. The right 
to secede may be a revolutionary one, but it exists neverthe- 
less We hope never to live in a republic 

whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets. 

If the Declaration of Independence 

justifies the secession from the British Empire of 3,000,000 
colonists in 1776, we do not see why it would not justify the 
secession of 5,000,000 Southrons in 1861." 

The New York Herald, in i860, admitted the right of 

secession, and said, "Coercion is out of 

the question." The Cincinnati Commercial, one of the great 
ante-bellum Republican papers, favored the recognition of a 
slave-holding republic. General Winfield Scott, the com- 
mander-in-chief of the United States army in 1861, was in 
favor of letting "the wayward sisters depart in peace." 

From all we have said, there is but one fair inference: 
the South had the right to secede if she wished to do so. 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 187 

Why she wished to do so has been already told, and need 
not be repeated. 

For many years after the war, Northern writers rarely 
admitted the right of secession as ever having existed. Mr. 
Charles Francis Adams says that up to about 1830 this 
right was universally admitted ; but we have shown that his 
own grandfather and his own state believed in this right 
after that time, and that his state threatened to exercise it. 
More recently, candid students of history have been more 
outspoken. In 1889, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, sprung from 
the best secession blood of New England and now (1906) 
senator from Massachosetts, said that originally "each and 
every state had the right peaceably to withdraw." When 
was this right surrendered prior to 1861 ? 

In the face of such facts as those given, writers of high 
repute in the North are still telling us in their books that the 
South had no warrant for the doctrine of secession. A well- 
known Northern text-book says : "For fifty years, no man, 
or set of men, possessed of political influence had so much as 
hinted at the possibility of Northern secession." 

This Northern scholar is quite sarcastic towards John 
Quincy Adams and his constituents of "1842, referred to in 
a foregoing paragraph, the Massachusetts legislature of 
1844 and 1845, an d various congressmen and senators who 
presented petitions in Congress between 1820 and i860. Of 
ignorance, we dare not accuse him; for* many of his state- 
ments as to the treatment of slaves in the North have been 
quoted in this volume. 

Some of the so-called histories are filled with bold state- 



188 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

ments of opinion, palmed off as history on unwary readers. 
One of them bearing an eminent name on its title page says : 
"The doctrine of state sovereignty thus put every man in 
the South on the wrong side, and kept him there." From 
these two books and others like them, the student would 
never suspect that the idea of secession had ever had any 
serious foothold in New England; for neither of them 
speaks candidly of the Hartford Convention and its plans 
for secession; and one of them varnishes it over so that a 
casual reader would hardly know of its importance. 

Some writers, however, are more candid in their state- 
ments. Prof. Goldwih Smith, of Canada, though far from 
friendly to the South, recently said : "Few who have looked 
into the history can doubt that the Union originally was a 
compact dissoluble on breach of the articles of union." 
Professor Smith does not tell us when the South ever sur- 
rendered the right of dissolving the Union in case of a 
breach of the articles of union. We say that this right was 
not surrendered until the fearful war of the '6o's, and only 
then at the point of the bayonet 

Very recently, Mr. Charles Francis Adams, the Massa- 
chusetts free-lance and the "morning star of reconciliation," 
said, "Both sides were right in 1861." This is magnani- 
mous, but the Confederate veterans cannot endorse it. If 
the South was right, the North was wrong, and vice versa. 

To the same fearless son of a race that fearlessly speaks 
out, we are indebted for the valuable fact that, from about 
1825 to 1840, the right of secession was taught at the West 
Point Military Academy. The author of the text-book 



THE HUNDRED TEARS' WRANGLE 189 

used chere was William Rawle, one of the most distinguished 
legal writers of Pennsylvania. Mr. Rawle was appointed to 
high positions by President Washington, and declined a 
seat in the cabinet of that great president. His lectures on 
constitutional law attracted large numbers of law students 
to Philadelphia, where his influence was incalculable. In 
the book referred to, A View of the Constitution of the 
United States, Rawle says plainly, "The secession of a state 
from the Union depends on the will of the people of such 
state." No Southern writer ever stated it more clearly. 

While this doctrine was being taught at West Point, Jef- 
ferson Davis, Albert Sidney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston, 
Leonidas Polk, Robert E. Lee, and other Southern cadets 
afterwards distinguished were graduated from the academy. 
The right of secession they learned, then, from the Federal 
government. How that government punished them for 
their proficiency as students, we shall learn in later chapters. 

(3) NULLIFICATION IN THE NORTH 

If facts mean anything, we have proved that secession was 
first threatened in New England. We now pass on to show 
that nullification was not only believed in but actually prac- 
tised in New England long before South Carolina ever made 
her reputation as a nullifier. 

In 1809, when the Embargo Act of 1807, passed by 
Congress to protect the United States against England, in- 
jured the commerce of New England more than that of 
England, Massachusetts declared that "the act was not bind- 
ing upon her citizens." This was nullification. In 1812, 



190 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY, 

while the country was at war with England, "the leading 
officials and citizens of New England threatened resistance 
to the military measures of the administration." This is 
quoted from a speech by Horatio Seymour, of New York. 

Mr. Fiske, you will recall, said that the Hartford Con- 
vention, composed of the flower of the New Englanders, 
"passed resolutions." That is putting it mildly. One of 
these resolutions was : "When emergencies occur which are 
either beyond the reach of judicial tribunals or too pressing 
to admit of delay incident to their forms, states which have 
no common umpire must be their own judges and execute 
their own decisions." This is nullification. This state- 
ment of the fathers of New England is as clear and as strong 
as anything ever said by John C. Calhoun or the state of 
South Carolina. In 1832, South Carolina said that, if the 
pending tariff law passed, she would be her own judge and 
execute her own decision — which was that that law would 
not be binding upon her people. 

That the Embargo Act of 1807 led New England to 
threatened secession and to actual nullification, we have al- 
ready seen. The War of 1812 produced the same results* 
Of the refusal of the two largest New England states to 
furnish their quota of troops for national defense, we spoke 
in the chapter on the War of 1812. That was nullification. 
Again, in 1844- 1845, the legislatures of several New Eng- 
land states resolved that those states were not bound to rec- 
ognize the annexation of Texas. What is this but nullifi- 
cation ? It makes South Carolina turn green with envy. 

The right of a state to nullify an act of Congress was 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 191 

always held by a respectable minority in the South. Belief 
in secession was, on the other hand, almost universal. To 
stay in the Union, however, and attempt to nullify a law of 
Congress, the great mass of the Southern people did not con- 
sider logical. The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 
iyg8-'gg, passed at the time of the Alien and Sedition Acts, 
by the legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky, show that the 
doctrine of nullification was popular at that time in those 
two states, but this doctrine was never generally popular. 
No Southern state ever nullified; South Carolina in 1832 
only threatened ; while Massachusetts, as we have seen, sev- 
eral times acted. 

The decade 1850 to i860 was the great era of Northern 
nullification. In that period, as already shown, fourteen 
Northern and Western states nullified both the constitution 
and a law based upon it. That is to say, after the passage 
of the Omnibus bill of 1850, one clause of which was a 
stringent act for the return of fugitive slaves, these fourteen 
states passed Personal Liberty bills in the very face of the 
new Fugitive Slave law of 1850. In every possible way, 
slaves were helped in escaping from their masters. The 
constitution and the Fugitive Slave law were nullified openly 
and boldly. As said already, this was one of the South's 
sorrows in the period just before the war between the sec- 
tions. 

The greatest Southern exponent of nullification was John 
C. Calhoun. His influence was very great, but not great 
enough to make this doctrine popular. In 1832, Virginia 
did not believe in it. She sent a commissioner to urge South 



192 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 



Carolina to withdraw her threat of nullifying the tariff acts 
of Congress. 

It was reserved for the oldest of the Northern states to 
take up this doctrine in 1844, twelve years after South Caro- 
lina had dropped it, and for thirteen others to "out-Herod 
Herod" after 1850. 

Are these facts stated in the histories ? Would a South- 
ern youth ever dream that South Carolina was far behind 
many Northern states in the matter of nullification ? 

We turn to the indexes of several standard Northern 
text-books. Under the word "nullification," we are almost 
invariably referred to the South Carolina matter of 1832; 
very faint intimation do we find that the North taught 
South Carolina how to nullify. Fiske is one of the few 
frank and candid Northern writers, and he puts it very 
mildly. The Encyclopedia Britannica, in its discussion on 
the subject, leaves us under the impression that the whole 
thing was born in the "fevered brain" of South Carolina, 
and that she had no warrant for her action of 1832. 



V 



"TheWa*" 

To the last and extreme resort — secession — then, the 
Couth was finally driven. The "straw that broke the 
camel's back" was the election of Abraham Lincoln, an 
avowed enemy of slavery, but objectionable to the South 
rather because he was the candidate of a party born out of 
the hostility to her and her institutions. As soon as he was 




JOHN C. CALHOUN 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 193 

elected, the secession movement began. South Carolina se- 
ceded December 20, i860; Mississippi, January 9, 1861 ; 
Florida, January 10; Alabama, January 11; Georgia, Jan- 
uary 19 ; Louisiana, January 26. On the 8th of February, a 
convention of delegates from these states met at Mont- 
gomery, Alabama, and formed a temporary government for 
the Confederate States of America, and elected Jefferson 
Davis, of Mississippi, president, and Alexander H. Stephens, 
of Georgia, vice-president. February 1, Texas seceded 
and applied for admission to the new republic. 

Other Southern states held back, hoping that some com- 
promise might be made. Virginia called a Peace Conven- 
tion, but this effected nothing. President James Buchanan, 
a Pennsylvania Democrat, did not believe that his oath of 
office required him to coerce the seceding states, and left the 
question to be settled by the incoming president. The 
latter, Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois Republican, believed 
that his oath of office compelled him to call out armies to 
see that the laws of the United States were duly obeyed in 
all sections of the country. His call for troops was indig- 
nantly met by Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, and North 
Carolina. Seeing armies mustering to march against their 
Southern sisters, these states seceded from the Union — Vir- 
ginia, April 17; Arkansas, May 6; North Carolina, May 20; 
Tennessee, June 8. Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryand were 
divided in their sympathies, but all furnished some great 
generals and some fine troops to the Confederacy. 

The Southern leaders seem to have expected a peaceable 
secession. For this reason, few preparations had been made 
13 



194 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

for an armed conflict. Only a few very far-sighted men, 
like Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, foresaw that the 
Northern states would not permit any state or states to se- 
cede peaceably. Senator Davis got little thanks when he 
told his constituents and others that a long war would fol- 
low secession. When many talked about a three-months' 
war, Col. Robert E. Lee predicted that the struggle would 
last seven years, and be immense in its proportions. 

For this war between the North and the South, several 
names are more or less common. The Northern people 
used to call it the "Rebellion;" and this title defaces the pub- 
lished records of the government, grating day after day 
upon the feelings of the Southern reader, because it is as- 
sociated with conquest, contumely, and perversion of history. 
The war was not a rebellion. If the states created the 
Union, how could the creators rebel against the thing 
created ? If the Union was the general agent of the states, 
how could the principals rebel against their agent? If the 
Union was a partnership, and if some of the partners wished 
to withdraw, how is that a rebellion, even if the other part- 1 
ners forcibly drag them back into partnership ? 

Many writers of both sections now use the term "Civil 
War;" but this, while not offensive, is logically and historic- 
ally inaccurate, and has been repudiated by the Confederate 
veterans ; for a civil war is a struggle for supremacy between 
two or more opposing parties or factions in the same nation, 
while the war of 1 861-1865 was a war fought by a large 
section of the people of our country for total separation and 
independence. It was really a war between two nations, 
and General Lee so regarded it. 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WRANGLE 195 

Some call it the War of Secession, or the War for Seces- 
sion. These are better than the two names discussed above, 
but are not satisfactory. 

Many old Confederates like the name War for Southern 
Independence; but this is too long to gain any general ac- 
ceptance. A good many Southern books call it the Confed- 
erate War ; but this would imply that it was instigated and 
brought on by the South — which is totally erroneous. For 
many years, the Southern people called it "the war," but, 
after the war with Spain (1898), another name was felt to 
be necessary. 

Around the "camp fires" of the veterans or over their 
pipes, some good old fathers and grandfathers call it "our 
war;" but this, while sociable and endearing, will never 
spread among the masses. 

The name "Great War" has recently been proposed, and 
is used frequently in the Confederate Veteran, the organ of 
the various associations for preserving the records, mem- 
ories, and traditions of the struggle. That title, however, 
would not do in general history, for we might have at any 
time a great war with some strong nation. The name 
War between the States has the high authority of Jefferson 
Davis and of Alexander H. Stephens, two of the most prom- 
inent Southern statesmen, and has been officially adopted 
by the Grand Camp of Confederate Veterans. It is, how- 
ever, rather longer than busy people are apt to fancy, but is 
logically correct, and can be used without wounding the feel- 
ings of any reader. At this time, we prefer it to any other 
name, and shall use it frequently in the following pages. 



196 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Mr. Lincoln should never have used the term "Rebel- 
lion." Of all men in the North he should have called the 
war "The Revolution of 1861"; for he declared in Congress, 
January 12, 1848, in a debate about Texas that any portion 
of a people may "revolutionize", and take possession of the 
territory they inhabit. His exact words are: "Any people 
anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the 
right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and 
form a new one that suits it better. This is a most valuable 
and most sacred right, a right which, we hope and believe, is 
to liberate the world. Nor is the right confined to cases in 
which the whole people of an existing government may 
choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, 
may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the 
territory as they inhabit."* 

Whatever its correct name, the storm long brewing burst 
in 1 86 1. For four years, the South waged a heroic contest 
against enormous odds, and had to surrender April 9, 1865. 

Slavery was extinguished. Secession, as an actual fact, 
was given up. A whole race had citizenship thrust upon it. 
Then the fearful era of "reconstruction" followed; and, 
since that time, all kinds of small men in all kinds of big 
places have been trying to solve, in a day or a month, prob- 
lems that would baffle the wisdom of Washington, Hamil- 
ton, Jefferson, Marshall, and other sages of the republic. 



♦Morse's Lincoln, vol. I., p. 76. 



TEE PRIVATE SOLDIER AND TEE SAILOR 197 

CHAPTER IV 
THE PRIVATE SOLDIER AND THE SAILOR 

I 
The Real Hero 

FOR forty years, the South has glorified her generals. 
While they were living, she heaped honors upon them, 
and, since their death, has built lofty monuments to 
their memory. May their names grow brighter with the 
ages ! May the names of Beauregard, Hampton, Hill, For- 
rest, Pickett, Stuart, the Johnstons, Lee, Jackson, and others 
be held in everlasting remembrance! 

The real hero, however, is the private soldier. It was he 
who won the victories that distinguished his commanders. 
It was he that stood sentinel at the lone midnight hour; 
faced cold, hunger, nakedness, peril, with no hope of pro- 
motion or of fame ; pointed the rifle, wielded the sabre, fired 
the belching cannon ; defied overwhelming odds ; shivering, 
barefooted, starving — all for the sake of loyalty to his state 
and to the flag of the young republic. 

His history has never been written. His day is just 
breaking on the horizon. In these rapid sketches, we can 
give but a slight hint of his greatness and of his achieve- 
ments. Suffice to say that no grander, no more tragic, 
figure has ever trodden the arena of history. To the future 



198 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

we must leave an adequate portrayal of his character. 
When the poet, the historian, or the orator of coming ages 
needs inspiration, he will turn his eyes to Manassas, Shiloh, 
Chancellorsville, and Richmond. 

II 

Who? 

Who was this Southern private? Was he a loafer, 
wharf-rat, "bruiser?" Was he a laggard and a dastard, 
driven by a despot's whip, like the soldiers of Xerxes ? A 
few such men are found in every army. Even the South 
had some such; but they soon deserted, and went home, 
to be pointed at and despised to the present moment. Very 
different, however, were the great mass of the Southern 
army. They were the pick of the South, the creme de la 
creme of her chivalry, the flower of her young man- 
hood. The merchant closed his store. The mechanic laid 
down his saw and his hammer. The lawyer closed his 
office, and the physician gave up his practice. The teacher 
left his schoolroom, and the professor resigned his chair, 
gladly putting themselves under the instruction of some old 
pupil who had had some military training. David went 
forth to meet Goliath. The so-called "effete aristocracy" 
of Virginia and other states went out to fight for constitu- 
tional government, for home and fireside. Not even Athens 
in all her glory sent forth such an army breathing such a 
spirit. 



TEE PRIVATE SOLDIER AND THE SAILOR 199 

III 

Why? 

Various motives actuate the ordinary soldier. Some 
fight for the money that's in it; some, wishing to see the 
world, join the army; some long for adventure, and so 
dare the cannon's mouth. Of money, the Southern private 
saw but little; his month's wages, when paid, were very 
meagre, and, after the second year of the war, were almost 
nothing. As to fame: the private knew that his name 
would never be heralded to the world, and that he would, if 
killed, probably be buried in an unmarked grave. 

The question "Why?" has been already answered. The. 
Southern soldier and sailor fought for his state ; went with 
her out of the Union; answered her summons after she se- 
ceded and called upon her sons to repel invasion. Possibly 
he was not in favor of seceding from the Union. If not, he 
still felt it his duty to obey her summons ; and this was the 
feeling that led Alexander H. Stephens, Sterling Price, Ju- 
bal A. Early, Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and many 
other eminent men to throw themselves into the cause of 
the Southern Confederacy. 

Mr. Stephens, for instance, was opposed to secession. He 
spoke strongly against it in the secession convention of 
Georgia. After his state decided to leave the Union, he 
went with her, and soon became vice-president of the South- 
, ern Confederacy. Mr. Stephens was a typical Southerner. 
He represents the Southern soldier, both private and officer. 
The state had acted as a sovereign state, with the right of 



200 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

secession as one of her reserved rights, and the soldier's 
duty was but to obey her summons. This is the whole 
story in a nutshell. 

Some say that the South was fighting for slavery, and we 
cannot deny that without slavery there would probably have 
been no war. The private soldiers, however, were not 
fighting for slavery. Probably not over one-third of them 
owned slaves; few of them owned enough to be worth 
fighting for ; and yet we must admit that fully seven-eighths 
of them were more or less indirectly interested in slavery as 
the economic basis of Southern institutions. 

IV 

44 Gideon's Band " 

The Southern soldier believed that his cause was just. 
He felt that he was fighting for local self-government, 
the same battle that his ancestors had waged in 1776 
against George III and his ministry. The odds against 
him did not affect him. He did not count the enemy. 
As to the overwhelming numbers opposed to him, let us 
quote a prominent Northern authority, General D. C. 
Buell, of the Union army: "It required a naval fleet and 
15,000 troops against a weak fort, manned by less than 100 
men, at Fort Henry; 35,000 with naval cooperation, to 
overcome 12,000 at Donelson; 60,000 to secure a victory 
over 40,000 at Pittsburg Landing (Shiloh) ; 120,000 to en- 
force the retreat of 65,000 intrenched after a month's fight- 
ing and maneuvering at Corinth; 100,000 repelled by 80,- 



THE PRIVATE SOLDIER AND THE SAILOR 201 

ooo in the first Peninsular campaign against Richmond; 
70,000, with a powerful naval force, to inspire the campaign 
which lasted nine months, against 40,000 at Vicksburg; 
115,000 sustaining a frightful repulse from 60,000 at Fred- 
ericksburg; 100,000 attacked and defeated by 50,000 at 
Chancellorsville ; 85,000 held in check two days by 40,000 at 
Antietam; 43,000 retaining the field uncertainly against 
38,000 at Stone River (Murfreesboro) ; 70,000 defeated at 
Chickamauga, and beleaguered by 70,000 at Chattanooga; 
80,000 merely to break the investing line of 45,000 at Chat- 
tanooga, and 100,000 to press back 50,000, increased at 
last to 70,000, from Chattanooga to Atlanta, a distance 
of 120 miles, and then let go an operation which is com- 
memorated at festive reunions by the standing toast of 'One 
hundred days under fire' ; 50,000 to defeat the investing line 
of 30,000 at Nashville; and, finally, 120,000 to overcome 
60,000 with exhaustion after a struggle of a year in Vir- 
ginia." 

V 

Mr* Roosevelt Explains 

We have quoted General Buell. We have proved by this 
prominent Northern general that it took four well-fed, well- 
equipped Northern soldiers four years to whip one half- 
starved, ragged, barefooted Confederate. Let us inquire 
the reason. 

Did the South fight a race of cowards? This writer will 
never admit that. Had the Northern soldier no convictions 



202 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 



to fight for? Hundreds of thousands of them were fight- 
ing heroically "to save the Union." Mr. Roosevelt offers a 
partial explanation. He says that the "militant spirit in the 
Northeast declined during the first half of the nineteenth 
century, in proportion as the so-called upper classes devel- 
oped along the line of a wealthy and timid bourgeois type, 
measuring everything by a mercantile standard" — that is, 
the fighting capacity of the Northern people declined as the 
love for money grew. To this he adds another reason : the 
men of the South kept up their warlike spirit by their habits 
of hunting, riding, and handling weapons and horses. 

We cannot agree with Mr. Roosevelt. His explanations 
do not explain. The men of the Northeast, if they had de- 
clined in military ardor, soon regained their spirit; for we 
soon find them fighting heroically at Shiloh and other places 
under Sherman, Grant, and Thomas. His statement about 
the Southern soldiers, also, is open to serious question; for 
thousands of the Southern troops had lived in stores, offices, 
banks, and factories, and had had little training in outdoor 
sports and in the use of firearms ; no more glorious rosters 
illuminate the pages of history than those of the Mobile 
Cadets, the Richmond Blues, Company F, and the Washing- 
ton Artillery. 

There are better explanations. There are reasons already 
intimated or stated in these pages. Without repeating too 
much, we may say : the Southern soldier was fighting for 
constitutional liberty, for state, for home, to repel invasion ; 
and every man felt that individually he had an important 
part to play in the great drama. 



THE PRIVATE SOLDIER AND THE SAILOR 203 

VI 

Wearied Out By Their Own Victories 

There is a limit to human endurance. Even this superb 
body of men had to surrender. After a heroic struggle of 
four years, the 174,000 starving, half-clad men could not 
stand before the million well-fed, well-equipped men that the 
North had under arms in the spring of 1865. 

Can history show another army like that? Where shall 
we find it? Call ancient Sparta from her tomb and she 
will say: "With me, war was a trade, an occupation; but 
with the South a mighty principle." Ask Athens why she 
fell ; she will reply : "I forsook the great principles of Mara- 
thon, and fought for spoils at Syracuse: the South is 
greater than I." 

Greece has her Marathon ; the South, her Chancellorsville 
and Cold Harbor. 

But for his victories, the Southern soldier would have 
died of cold or of hunger. By capturing food, clothing, and 
equipment, he fitted himself to meet the enemy. By leaving 
so many supplies behind him, General N. P. Banks earned 
the nickname of "Jackson's Commissary." Guns, the soldier 
captured on the battlefield. Overcoats, he threw away, re- 
lying on taking new ones from the enemy when the weather 
made them necessary. 

Well has Charles Francis Adams said that the Southern 
armies succumbed to sickness, exposure, starvation, but not 
to defeat.* 



♦From a speech made at Lexington, Va., Jan. 19, 1907. 



204 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

VII 

The Soldier's Joys 

We have called the Southern private a tragic figure. In 
some aspects he is certainly tragic. In other respects, how- 
ever, he is a bright and happy figure. No merrier fellow 
ever sat at the camp fire, sang in the parlor, or picked the 
banjo at an evening party. Even now, his bosom swells as 
he tells us of the "good times" he had when he was in the 
army. 

Why, then, was he happy ? 

In the first place, he believed in his cause. He believed 
that the South was right, and that God was with her. 
Again, he believed in his commanders. He trusted them, 
honored them, loved them, and thought that they were al- 
most infallible. 

Another source of joy was their unity of purpose. They 
were controlled by one great idea, love of state and loyalty 
to her summons. This held them together as a band of 
brothers. If some had been fighting for slavery, some for 
the navigation of the Mississippi, some for money, adven- 
ture, promotion, they would have disbanded after the dark 
days of Gettysburg and Vicksburg. 

Of the camp life we have already spoken; the soldier's 
accounts of it are very entertaining. Songs, jests, anec- 
dotes, reminiscences, stories of adventure, hairbreadth es- 
capes — more or less adorned according to the temperament 
and imagination of each story-teller — all brightened up his 



THE PRIVATE SOLDIER AND THE SAILOR 205 

life, and helped him to bear his separation from his loved 
ones. 

A great bond of fellowship was the mess. To have 
eaten at the same mess during the war still binds men to- 
gether in warm affection; "messmates" is almost a synonym 
for sweethearts. 

All soldiers have some of these pleasures, and some of 
the foregoing paragraphs would apply to almost any army. 
A few of the statements, however, apply more particularly 
to the Southern soldiers. No body of men on earth ever 
believed more firmly that they were absolutely right. No 
body of men, except the Japanese, ever rose so unanimously 
to fight for their country. And, last but not least, they 
were, as we have said, banded together like brothers and 
equals ; and they treated each other with courtesy and con- 
sideration. 

VIII 

"What Is Life Without Honor?" 

These are the words of Stonewall Jackson. In them the 
South breathed forth her burning question. Honor, as seen 
in an earlier chapter, was the watchword of our ante-bellum, 
fathers. 

The Southern army was an army of gentlemen. Its ethics 
were the ethics of gentlemen. Even its errors were the 
errors of gentlemen ; and the very brotherhood and equality 
already spoken of interfered very seriously with the disci- 
pline and morale of the Southern armies. 



206 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

The Southern private treated woman with deference. He 
was considerate of his nurses, and rarely forgot himself in 
their presence. Ladies who, served in the hospitals tell us 
that drunkenness and profanity were almost unheard of. 

The average intelligence of the Southern soldier was very 
great. He was a good judge of character and of ability, and 
soon took the measure of his generals. His opinion of war 
questions is well worth having, even after forty years have 
passed over him. 

The number of educated men in the Southern army is re- 
markable. Nearly all the colleges and universities poured 
forth both students and professors. Five hundred students 
of the University of Virginia joined the army. All but one 
at William and Mary College enlisted. In the Rockbridge 
Artillery, there were seven A. M.'s of the University of Vir- 
ginia, forty-two college graduates, and nineteen students of 
theological seminaries. 

Remember the home the soldier came from. Recall the 
picture of the father training him in ideals of truth and of 
courage. Take this man, then, the blood of the Anglo- 
Saxon tingling in his veins; give him a great cause, a 
mighty principle to fight for, intolerable grievances to re- 
dress; stir him to fever heat with a spirit of devotion, so 
that he shall "shut his eyes to untold odds and close his ears 
to every warning of policy or of calculation;"* then give him 
leaders that he trusts, loves, and honors — and you have a 
picture of the soldier and sailor of the Southern Con- 
federacy. 



*Gen. E. C. Walthall, of Miss. 



TEE PRIVATE SOLDIER AND TEE SAILOR 207 

IX 

Christ in the Camp 

Of earnest Christians, there were large numbers in the 
Southern army. The Southern soldier came from a Christ- 
ian home, and was, as already seen, taught to respect and 
honor religion. Probably no army since that of Cromwell 
ever had so large a proportion of devout Christians both in 
the ranks and among the generals. Large numbers of the 
best ministers of the South entered the army as chaplains, 
preaching on Sundays, holding services during the week, 
and following the soldier to the front of battle, to hold the 
cross before his closing eyes and tell him of the great Cap- 
tain of his salvation. 

Prayer meetings, often conducted by private soldiers, 
were frequently held, both in camp and when the troops were 
moving. Such leaders as Stuart, Lee, and Jackson often 
joined devoutly in these services. Irreverent and utterly 
irreligious soldiers there of course were, and thousands of 
them. Gambling would often go on within sight and hear- 
ing of the prayer meeting, and many privates and officers 
used to gamble freely when they visited the cities. We do 
not say that the army was made up of saints without sin- 
ners, but we do say that the moral tone of the Confederate 
army was remarkably high. 

Great religious movements used to sweep through the 
Southern armies. The soldier, cut off from his dear ones 
at home, felt very keenly at times the need of divine love 



208 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

and divine companionship, and found both in the God whose 
praises he had heard so often in the dear cottage on the Ten- 
nessee or the Rappahannock. 

The Southern soldier, as already said, believed that God 
was with him, and would give him the victory. Great was 
his disappointment and his grief in April, 1865. For a time 
he felt as if God "had forgotten to be gracious," as if "his 
mercy were clean gone forevermore." Soon, however, he 
brushed away his tears, opened his Bible at another verse, 
and started out with determination to rebuild his home, till 
his land, and redeem his state from the carpetbagger and 
the scalawag. 

To-day, the Christian veteran is the pillar of our public 
worship. He often stands in the pulpit, and tells us how 
to suffer and be strong. His courage and his wisdom have 
laid new foundations for the South to build upon. 

Among her Christian leaders, the South fondly remem- 
bers, not only Lee, Jackson, and Stuart, but Polk, the bishop- 
general, who laid down his pastoral staff and took up the 
sword because his people needed his West Point training, 
and Jefferson Davis, who, when he heard that Richmond 
must fall, was engaged in the most solemn ordinance of the 
Christian religion. 

X 

"Pirates" 

We have spoken incidentally of the Southern sailor, but 
he richly deserves special mention. What a halo decks his 
brow! What lustre hangs around his memory! Under 




J. E. B. STUART 



THE PRIVATE SOLDIER AND THE SAILOR 209 

such leaders as Semmes, Buchanan, Catesby Jones, Tatnall, 
and others, he won a glorious immortality. 

"Pirate," Raphael Semmes was branded. "Should have 
been hung at the yardarm" was the verdict often hurled 
against him. If so, why was John Paul Jones's body not 
hanged on a gibbet, instead of being brought across the 
ocean and buried with national honors at Annapolis ? Jones 
and Semmes were "pirates" of the same order. 

Some stigmatize Semmes and his crew as privateers, using 
the word as a contemptuous epithet. Semmes, however, 
was not a privateer, but was regularly commissioned by the 
Confederate government. Suppose he had been a privateer, 
it was preposterous to denounce him; for privateers were 
long popular with the United States government. Of John 
Paul Jones, the Revolutionary hero, we have already 
spoken. In the war of 1812, privateers played havoc with 
the commerce of England. In 1856, when the great nations 
drew up the Declaration of Paris, the United States flatly 
refused to accept the clause which declared that privateering 
was piracy. 

There never lived a braver hero than the Southern sailor. 
History, poetry, and eloquence may turn to Hampton Roads 
for inspiration. What is more sublime than the Virginia? 
When she steamed out of Norfolk on the 8th of March, 
1862, to dare the Federal fleet, her crew expected the vessel 
to sink at any moment; they had no idea that she would 
carry them across the harbor. They simply braved the 
waters. See them ram the Cumberland, fire the Congress, 
and drive the 'Minnesota into shoal water where the Vir- 
14 



210 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

ginia could not follow her ! The world wondered ; the North 
was panic-stricken. 

This victory of the 8th of March was due to the superior- 
ity of the Southern vessel, and not to any lack of bravery 
on the other side. It was a one-sided affair : wood on one 
side; thick iron, supported by a powerful battering-ram, on 
the other. The heroism of that day consisted in the South- 
ern crew's risking the sea in a totally untried vessel, of en- 
tirely untried mechanism; while the Northern crew deserve 
great admiration for fighting such a creature. 

Early on March the 9th, appeared the "little Monitor/' 
as she is fondly called in many volumes. She stood between 
the Virginia and the stranded Minnesota. For three or 
more hours, these two ironclads engaged in a colossal duel. 
The Virginia had size, weight, a much larger battery, and a 
ram ; the Monitor had the most powerful guns ever launched 
up to that time, and she could be much more easily ma- 
neuvered. Both crews expected their ship to sink at any 
moment : each was a novelty in warfare, a mere experiment. 
The two vessels fought like hyenas ; but neither could hurt 
the other seriously. Both crews became exhausted, physically 
and nervously. The Virginia had her funnel and smoke- 
stack shot away, and was otherwise more or less wounded. 
About 12 130 or 12 145 p. m., both combatants stopped fight- 
ing. Just as the officers of the Virginia were conferring as 
to continuing the fight, the pilots said that they would have 
to take the vessel up to Norfolk right away or wait another 
twenty-four hours for a tide that would float her into the 
harbor. When the Virginia steamed toward Norfolk, the 



THE PRIVATE SOLDIER AND THE BAILOR 211 

electric wires flashed numerous messages North claiming a 
great victory for the Monitor. 

The Monitor deserves our highest admiration. The fight 
of March the 9th was rightly pronounced by the Federal 
Congress "a remarkable battle." 

The Monitor did stand in the way of the Virginia, and 
save the Federal fleet from total destruction. She, how- 
ever, did not save Washington, Philadelphia, and New 
York; for the Virginia could not have gone up there to 
shell the White House, as the Federal cabinet so nervously 
dreaded. 

The Virginia staid at the Norfolk navy yard a month for 
repairs, especially waiting for her shutters. On the nth 
of April, she came down to look for the Monitor and her 
twenty-five wooden consorts; but they could not be found. 
Again, early in May she renewed the challenge. Orders 
had been issued by President Lincoln and Hon. Gideon 
Welles, Federal secretary of war, "that the Monitor be not 
too much exposed."* 

Some months later the crew of the Monitor applied to the 
Federal Congress for prize money for disabling the Vir- 
ginia; but their claim was not allowed, the Virginia having 
been destroyed by her own officers on May the 1 ith, 1862. 

The South is greatly indebted to the United States gov- 
ernment for volume 7, series I, of the so-called War of the 
Rebellion records, as a casual reading of the first hundred 
pages will convince any reasonable man that the Monitor 
won no victory except in so far as she saved the Federal 
fleet from annihilation. 



*Becords of the Rebellion, vol. 7, series I. 



212 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

The charge made by some Northern people that the South 
stole the Merrimac is too puerile to notice. The Gosport 
navy yard was abandoned by the United States government, 
and the Merrimac was scuttled and sunk by the Federals. 
The Confederates raised the vessel, fitted it up with armor, 
and called it Virginia. 



THE WOMEN OF THE CONFEDERACY 213 



CHAPTER V, 
THE WOMEN OF THE CONFEDERACY 



The Truest Patriots 

OF the great generals of the South, much has been 
said and written. In the following pages, we our- 
selves shall make some attempt, though utterly in- 
adequate, to outline the career of Lee, Jackson, and Albert 
Sidney Johnston, and to give some idea of the great deeds 
of Stuart, Beauregard, Forrest, Joseph E. Johnston, and 
ether heroes of the Southern Confederacy. Of the private 
soldier and sailor, also, some record is found in history ; and 
the present writer has attempted, though all in vain, to 
throw upon the canvas the outlines of that noble and tragic 
figure. 

The women of the South, however, are but little noticed 
in our histories. They patiently await the historian's pen, 
the poet's song, and the sculptor's chisel ; and all these will 
find in the women of the Confederacy a fit subject for their 
art and' a theme fraught with inspiration ; but history, art, 
and poetry alike will shrink in dismay from attempting a 
picture at all complete; for to do full justice to the subject 
is utterly beyond the power of historian, poet, painter, and 
sculptor; is, indeed, beyond the reach of human imagina- 
tion. 



214 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

President Davis said that the Southern women were "bet- 
ter patriots" than the men; and Stonewall Jackson in a letter 
to one of them said, "They are patriots in the truest sense 
of the word." No reflection upon the true men of the 
South was intended by tV ese great leaders ; but they no doubt 
meant that all the women were patriots, first, last, and for- 
ever, and that they had more unshaken faith in their cause 
than the men, and suffered more willingly for it. 

If there were few spies and traitors among the men, 
among the women there were still fewer. If a woman ever 
led the enemy over bypaths to the rear of a Southern army, 
tradition is silent about it. While some men here and there 
are still spoken of as having sent information to the enemy, 
the women are far less numerous. The name of such a wo- 
man is a hissing and a byword, more execrated than that of 
Benedict Arnold; and her very house is still pointed out, 
almost as an obj ect of execration. 

The Quaker poet, Whittier, has immortalized the mythical 
Barbara Frietchie. For some Southern poet, the real 
Hettie Cary, Belle Boyd, and other heroines of the South 
offered abundant inspiration. 

II 

Wives and Mothers of Heroes 

Willingly, gladly, though tearfully, the Southern woman 
gave her dear ones to the Confederacy. Filled, thrilled with 
"patriotic zeal," the maiden bound on her warrior's sash, 
the wife girded on her husband's sword, the mother pressed 



THE WOMEN OF THE CONFEDERACY 215 

her son to her heart, breathed a few brave words in his ear, 
kissed him a hundred times — sending them forth to fight for 
state, for home, and for loved ones. In their vocabulary, 
there was no such word as fail. Hopeful, buoyant, confi- 
dent, assured that their cause was just and that a just cause 
must succeed, they never dreamed of failure. Men might 
reason and calculate the chances of deieat; women, never. 
A man might argue that one ill-fed, half-ciad, half-shod, ill- 
equipped soldier could not hold out long against four well- 
fed, thoroughly-equipped men; but the women closed the 
argument with an incredulous smile, and reminded him that 
Lee was at the head of the armies and that God was in 
heaven. 

The Southern woman was thoroughly informed as to the 
movements of troops, and as to the details of battles. She 
read the newspapers eagerly and greedily, would prefer a 
paper to a good dinner if called upon to choose between 
them ; and, after the second year of the war, when both were 
scarce, she had less trouble in getting the paper than in 
getting the dinner, but bore her loss of dinner with Spartan 
fortitude. 

On all subjects connected with the war, she always had 
her "opinion." She "lambasted" poor President Davis for 
not permitting "our" army to take Washington! She 
thought Beauregard was the "handsomest creature" and "so 
brave," and wished that he and Joe Johnston had let Jack- 
son take "old Lincoln" prisoner in the White House. She 
still shakes her head wisely, and tells us what Southern 



216 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

generals "ruined the Confederacy." These opinions she is 
handing down to her children and her children's children. 

Ill 

The Recruiting- Office* 

No fellow with a sore thumb and his arm in a sling could 
deceive a Southern woman. She would soon inquire where 
his regiment was, and sing him back to the army. If some 
admirer of hers was looking for a bombproof position when 
able to be in the field, she would make it warm for him at 
the next "starvation party." Just as he was hanging over 
the piano and ogling her with devouring glances, she would 
strike up a song somewhat as follows : 

"Wouldst thou have me love thee, dearest, 

With a woman's proudest heart, 
Which shall ever hold thee nearest, 

Shrined in its inmost part ? 
Listen, then! My country's calling 

On her sons to meet the foe ! 
Leave these groves of rose and myrtle ; 

Drop thy dreamy harp of love ! 
I/ike young Korner,* scorn the turtle, f 

When the eagle screams above ! " 

The young swain might not know who Korner was, or what 
kind of turtle he must scorn ; but, by the time Arabella sang 

*A young poet of Germany killed In the war of liberation, 
fUsed by the poets for "turtle-dove." 



THE WOMEN OF THE CONFEDERACY 217 

the rest of this well-known Alabama poem,* Jack would 
hear a good deal of snickering among the girls, and see the 
soldiers present nudging one another. Among a small class 
of men, Arabella was one of the regular recruiting officers 
of the Confederacy; the other army had "bounties" for the 
present, and pensions for the indefinite future. 

At church on Sundays, Arabella continued her work of 
recruiting. If some young fellow that neighborhood gos- 
sips said ought to be at the front but was dodging duty, 
tried to be polite, and came to help her off her horse or 
out of the carriage, she would hardly give him time to get 
near her before she asked him, "Why aren't you with your 
regiment?" 

IV 
"The Uncrowned Queens of the South" 

Woman's battlefield was at home, amid the cares and the 
drudgery of domestic life. While change and excitement 
helped to keep up the soldier's spirits, an eternal sameness 
of anxiety and of dread weighed upon his wife, his sisters, 
and his mother. While he was filled to intoxication with 
"the rapture of the strife," as the poets call it, she was 
bowed down with the cares and the responsibilities of the 
home, by wild rumors from the front, and by a constant 
dread of terrible news from the hospital or the battlefield. 

No bugle, no drum, called her to her daily battle. Day 
after day, she arose from alarming dreams "tired by her 

♦By A. B. Meek, of Alabama. 



218 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

night's rest," to begin the humdrum life of the farm or of 
the workroom, and saw her means of subsistence growing 
more and more precarious. No Joan of Arc was needed 
to lead the armies of the South, and none made her ap- 
pearance. Few opportunities for fame or distinction came 
to the Southern woman; her chief glory was to be queen 
of the home, and to write to her husband or son that all 
were well and strong, and that he must feel no uneasiness 
about them. Often these words were penned with trem- 
bling fingers, and blotted with tear drops. In quiet and se- 
clusion, she passed her days, craving no publicity, and not 
wishing to see her name heralded to the nations. 

Occasionally, however, some heroine would all uncon- 
sciously "wake up some morning and find herself famous." 
Some patriotic song sung by beautiful lips, with a chorus 
of blushes, would send a young girl's name ringing through 
the Southern army; or some Emma Sansom,* showing a 
great soldier the way to surprise the enemy's cavalry, and 
riding in front of him on the saddle, ostensibly as a guide, 
but really to shield him from the Federal bullet, would flash 
all unconsciously into fame and immortality. 

A war heroine of Virginia is Belle Boyd, of Martinsburg, 
now a town of West Virginia. She rendered such valuable 
service to the South as to receive the special thanks of Stone- 
wall Jackson and the special hatred of E. M. Stanton, Fed- 
eral secretary of war. She made her debut in public life 
by shooting a Northern soldier that addressed her mother 
and herself "in language as offensive as it is possible to con- 

*The young Georgia girl that showed Forrest where to find Streight's cavalry. See 
Confederate Veteran, May 1895. 



THE WOMEN OF THE CONFEDERACY 219 

ceive," and she was completely exonerated by the command- 
ing officer. Later she was confined in Northern prisons, 
condemned to hard labor in jail, and, as a special favor, was 
banished to the far South. After a while she was allowed 
to go to Canada, with the threat that, if ever caught in the 
United .States again, she would be shot. 

■y; 

"Stitch, Stitch, Stitch" 

All this anxiety and this responsibility, without com- 
panionship, would have driven our mothers and our grand- 
mothers to insanity. Instinctively they sought each other's 
society. Those that lived in towns and cities, or in the 
country within reach of county courthouses, used to meet 
frequently to sew and knit for the soldiers. Coats, over- 
coats, pantaloons, and havelocks were made in great quan- 
tities. The socks that were knit by "saints of all ages," an 
unabridged arithmetic could not number. Click, click, click, 
went the busy needles, day after day, all day long, with 
hardly a minute for pea soup and corn bread at dinner time. 
Click, click, click, went the busy needles again at night, till 
the "Confederate candle"* burned to a frazzle, or till old 
grandmother's spectacles fell off as she dozed in her chair, 

*A " Confederate candle" was made of porous cord of various sizes, saturated in 
beeswax and wound on a spool or on a stick. The spool could of course stand on one 
end ; the stick was put on a wooden stand. The end of the string had to be manipu- 
lated with the fingers at short intervals, making the whole matter very troublesome. 
Sometimes the whole apparatus would catch on fire and go up in smoke, leaving the 
family in Egyptian darkness for the rest of the night. 



220 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

and Mother and Auntie said it was time to go to bed and 
get a good night's rest. 

Along with these socks, went oftentimes a pretty necktie, 
a handkerchief, a pair of knit gloves, and a piece of paper 
carefully folded, on which was written in a smooth, ladylike 
hand — not the great big hand now in vogue — some message 
of love or a text of scripture; such as, 

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." 

Oftentimes, the hands that made these garments milked 
the cows, planted and hoed the vegetables, and made crops 
to feed the family. In numberless cases, these women su- 
perintended the work of the servants on the farms and the 
plantations, and thus furnished food, not only for them- 
selves, their children and servants, but for the soldiers in 
camp and at the front of battle. 

As said in another chapter, it was often a woman's hand 
that led out the dark battalions, and her brain that made the 
plans for feeding and clothing the helpless little ones and the 
equally helpless servants. In docility and obedience for the 
most part, these faithful creatures performed their daily 
labors. Regularly and sincerely they inquired about 
"Marster," "Marse Tom," "Marse Henry," and many were 
deeply distressed at the sad news that too often came from 
the battlefield. Of very serious insult offered these defense- 
less women by the negroes, there is no record ; a few cases 
such as we often read of now would have disbanded the 
armies of the Confederacy, and privates and officers would 



TEE WOMEN OF TEE CONFEDERACY 221 

have vied with each other in leaving the army in order to 
protect their homes from insult worse than that which pro- 
duced secession. 

VI 

44 Gallant Black Torn" and Treacherous Isaac 

The friendly relations between the races were for the 
most part undisturbed. Where the Federal army passed, 
"however, some change was noticed. Some few servants 
became insolent, and a good many were unwilling to work 
as usual. Large numbers on the other hand, clung to their 
"white folks" with noble fidelity. "I'll eat dirt and sleep in 
de leaves, 'fore I'll leave my ole Mistis and my young 
Missy," said gallant "black Tom" one morning, when told 
by the Federals that he was free. Of treachery worthy of 
an Indian, however, we had some cases, notably that of Gil- 
more Simms's body-servant Isaac. Though South Carolina 
was doomed beforehand to havoc and destruction, orders 
were given by the promoters of the brave "March through 
Georgia" to spare Simms's house, on the ground that he did 
not belong to the South alone, but to the whole country. 
This order was obeyed. The house and library were spared 
by the enemy. A few months later, however, before Mr. 
Simms could bring his family home, it was burned by Isaac, 
to whom the great litterateur had ever been a kind and a hu- 
mane master. 

One of the marvels of history is the fidelity of the South- 
ern negro to his master during that awful era. This fidelity 



222 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

is appreciated in the South, and makes the relations be- 
tween many old colored people and their white neighbors 
very tender. The old colored women, not being politicians, 
seem to feel closer to the whites. To meet "old Mammy" 
is a great treat to many of this writer's generation ; and the 
good creature's eye glistens as she tells her friends, "This 
is one of my white chillun." Unfortunately these old mam- 
mies are dying off, and their places are being left vacant. 

VII 

Waf Poets of the South 

As Greece had her Tyrtaeus and Germany her Arndt, 
Korner, and others to stir their soldiers with patriotic odes, 
so the South had her Timrod, her Hayne, her Thompson, 
her McCabes, her Randall, her Simms, her Cooke, her Ryan, 
and other poets. Women also touched the lyre, and thrilled 
the Southern heart. Catherine Warfield, Margaret Pres- 
ton, Fanny Downing, Mary B. Clarke, and other gifted 
women wrote songs that were worth many regiments to the 
Confederate armies. Many of their poems stir our pulses 
even in these piping days of peace, and they are invaluable 
to the student of that fearful revolution. They should be 
read and memorized by our children and our children's 
children. As every English child knows the Battle of the 
Baltic, the Revenge, and many other such ballads; as Ger- 
man children know the Sword Song, What Is the German's 
Fatherland ?, and other heroic songs; so our Southern child- 



THE WOMEN OF THE CONFEDERACY 223 

ren should know Maryland, My Maryland, the Sword of 
Lee, Catherine Warfield's Manassas, the Song of the Snow, 
Somebody's Darling, and other poems that compress into a 
few lines whole libraries of history and whole centuries of 
woe. 

VIII 
"Starvation Patties" 

All shadow and no sunshine would make a nation of 
idiots and madmen. Relief there must be or the o'er- 
charged heart will break, and reason forsake her seat. In 
self-defense, therefore, the younger women of the South, 
wherever possible, and when no fresh sorrow prevented, 
used to come together to sing, play games, talk and dance 
with one another, or with the beardless boys of fifteen or 
sixteen, slurred as "trundle-bed trash" after the return of 
peace made them no longer needed. If one or two of the 
soldier boys happened to be at home on a furlough or on 
sick leave, what a charm would be added to the entertain- 
ment! What a hero in the parlor! How the fair maids 
would hang upon his lips as he graphically described his last 
battle, told how he captured a "whole company of Yankees," 
and, like Goldsmith's old soldier, "shouldered his crutch, to 
show how fields were won." If he had a voice, how beauti- 
fully his baritone or his tenor would blend with Lucy's so- 
prano, Julia's alto, and Alice's contralto. While the dancing 
was going on, the old folks did not come into the parlor; 



224 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

for many hearts were too anxious and too sad to care for 
dancing. But — 

"Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, 
To soften rocks or bend a knotted oak," 

as the poet says ; and soon the old gentleman, the old lady, 
the maiden aunt, the sick cousin from the country, a good 
many neighbors, not forgetting the Rev. Dr. Hipkins, kiss- 
ing pastor of half the pretty girls in the neighborhood — 
all came pouring in to hear the music. When This Cruel 
War is Over, Maryland, My Maryland, the Bonnie Blue 
Flag, Dixie, Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still, Lorena, 
Stonewall Jackson's Way, and other favorite melodies, kept 
the whole neighborhood awake until an unearthly hour be- 
tween night and morning. 

Rarely was that music stopped by a call to supper. Those 
singers neither wet their whistles nor filled up the vacuum 
below the diaphragm. Those were "water parties," or 
"starvation parties." It was always Lent; self-denial, fast- 
ing, was the order of the day. Happy were those people 
that, had had two decent meals, "let alone" expecting any- 
thing after supper. 

Sometimes, however, there would be a sort of subscrip- 
tion party, each family interested contributing one or two 
dishes, puddings, and so forth. "Sorghum puddings?" do 
you ask? Goodness gracious! Or one of those delicious 
puddings that a South Carolina lady who ref ugeed in Char- 
lotte, North Carolina, during the war called a "master- 




JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON 



THE WOMEN OF TEE CONFEDERACY 225 

piece of the culinary art" — a dish so tempting that we re- 
serve it for a later paragraph. 

IX 
"A Ministering Angel Thou" 

Self-denial, we said, was the order of the day. Yes, self- 
denial in a thousand forms; some of it unavoidable, but 
much of it voluntary. Women delicately reared tore the 
carpets from their floors and made blankets (so-called) for 
the soldiers. Planters stopped raising cotton as a selling 
crop, and raised grain to feed the armies. Ladies sold their 
jewelry, and would have cut the hair off their heads, if the 
plan suggested by a niece of President Madison, to sell the 
hair in order to raise money for the Confederacy, had been 
thought practicable. 

All this time, the women of the South kept up a brave 
heart and had no idea of failure. Their hopeful letters to 
friends and loved ones at the front inspired the soldiers, 
nerved them for greater effort, and gave them fortitude 
under sufferings and reverses. So well was this known 
that all through Georgia and South Carolina Sherman's 
"triumphal" heroes told Southern ladies, "You women could 
have stopped this war long ago if you had chosen to do so." 

The queen of the home, she was in the hospital an angel 
of mercy. Eternity alone can gauge the work done by the 
Southern woman in relieving pain, in comforting the weary, 
and in robbing death of some of its terrors. Friend and 
foe alike received her tender ministrations. The wounded, 
15 



226 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

she cheered and entertained with an ease and a grace that 
Southern women have always been known for; before the 
dying eyes, she held up the cross of Him who "went about 
doing good;" and the dead she saw decently buried and, if 
no minister could be found, would herself read a part of the 
funeral service over his remains rather than let him go 
without Christian burial. 

She wrote letters home for the sick ana the wounded, and 
added a cheering word of her own. To bereaved ones far 
away, she wrote tenderly and sympathetically, in words that 
only a Christian and a lady could command, telling them of 
the dead boy's last hours, of his last messages to dear ones 
at home, of his trust in a Saviour's love, and of the last 
words that indicated a triumphant death. 



Cupid and "General Lee's Socks" 

Even hospital life had its sunshine, its brighter aspects. 
Komance sometimes entered those halls of pain and of 
suffering ; for, after the darts of the enemy had been pulled 
out and the soldier was being nursed back to health and 
vigor, the blind god Cupid would enter the hospital and hurl 
a dart at him, and give him a wound from which he never 
recovered. To make myself clearer to the young and hith- 
erto unwounded reader : the soldiers often fell in love with 
the ladies that nursed them — pity being akin to love, and 
gratitude greatly promoting the tender passion — the two 
were drawn into the snares of Cupid, and as a result there 



THE WOMEN OF THE CONFEDERACY 227 

were many marriages "before that cruel war was over." 
Difference in age did not balk Cupid, a good many young 
fellows being so grateful as to marry ladies as old as their 
mothers, or certainly as old as their "old maid sisters." 

In one of the largest hospitals of Virginia, much fun was 
afforded by "General Lee's socks." They acted, also, as a 
fine recruiting officer. Of these articles of apparel, Miss 
Emily Mason, a survivor of the old "effete aristocracy," 
and one of the "angels of mercy," gives an interesting ac- 
count in the Charleston News and Courier. Mrs. Lee, it 
seems, once sent Miss Mason some of the General's! socks, 
too much darned to be comfortable. These were kept by the 
nurses to lend to any soldier well enough to return to duty 
but not especially eager to do so. They hurt his feet so much 
that he could hardly walk ; and the other soldiers soon saw 
that he was wearing the famous socks, and they enjoyed the 
joke immensely. A word to the wise being sufficient, the 
well soldier soon returned to the post of duty ; and, after a 
while, the mere offer of these socks was considered as an 
official discharge from the hospital and as an invitation 
from the ladies to go back to his regiment. 

XI 

A Starving Nation 

As the war went on, starvation literally stared the whole 
South in the face. Not only the soldiers, but the women 
and children, also, often suffered the pangs of hunger. Long 
marches were made by troops on little or no nourishment; 



228 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

for a soldier's knapsack often contained nothing to eat ex- 
cept a few handfuls of parched corn, and many men died 
from slow starvation. 

. At home, the families of these men had a life-and-death 
struggle to keep the wolf from the door. After the second 
year of the war, the suffering in many homes was terrible. 
Flour and sugar oftentimes were unknown quantities. Corn 
meal was gladly eaten by the most fragile women; for su- 
gar and syrup, the usual substitute was sorghum, made from 
home-grown sugar cane. A chest of light brown sugar 
gotten through the blockade, a man of means regarded as a 
great bonanza. Peas were used considerably instead of 
flour and meal and had to be given to convalescents. The 
ill very often suffered for food to tempt the palate. Corn 
meal was cooked in every way imaginable, "rebel bread" 
and "Beauregard cakes" being very popular. "Excellent 
poundcake," too, was made of corn meal. 

"A masterpiece of the culinary art" was a "fine pudding" 
(sic) made of corn meal and dried apples boiled together, 
and eaten with a sauce of butter and sorghum. 

Coffee passed out of memory. Even the Rio, generally 
so distasteful to the higher classes, would have been greatly 
relished. The usual substitute for coffee were meal, sweet 
potatoes, wheat, rye, peanuts, chestnuts, and okra seed — all 
parched. 

In numberless homes, tea, also, faded almost out of mem- 
ory. Fbr black tea, blackberry leaves were used ; for green, 
holly leaves. A good many used sassafras. "Fodder tea" 
was used in some families. 



THE WOMEN OF THE CONFEDERACY 229 

To get two meals a day of such stuff, with an occasional 
slice of fat bacon, many were truty thankful. As a result 
of eating salt meat so constantly, many refined women suf- 
fered with scurvy and kindred diseases. 

All these and other privations, the women of the South 
bore unmurmuringly. They thanked God that they could 
exist, and let the men stay at the front, to fight for home, 
loved ones, and freedom. A mother and several daughters 
who belonged to a family known to every schoolboy in 
America,* and who -had sent five sons and brothers into the 
army, used to sing their "grace" in Richmond over "pea- 
soup and corn bread for breakfast, corn bread and pea-soup 
for dinner." 

Medicines, also, became very scarce and very expensive. 
The United States made quinine "contraband of war," that 
is, would not let it come through the lines to relieve the 
soldiers. Of course, soldiers, non-combatants, women 
and children all suffered immeasurably. A substitute for 
quinine was dogwood and poplar, boiled strong, and made 
into a paste. Home-made mustard, opium, and castor oil 
were tried in some places; with what highly beneficial re- 
sults, one may imagine. 

At such sufferings, the demons in Hades must have shiv- 
ered with horror; but 



'Man's inhumanity to man 
Makes countless thousands mourn." 



♦But almost ignored by the Encyclopedia Britannica. (See pages 101, 102.) 



230 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 



XII 



The "Triumphal Match" Through Georgia 

On May 4, 1864, simultaneously by the watch, General 
Grant moved upon Lee and Richmond; Gen. W. T. Sher- 
man, upon Joseph E. Johnston and Atlanta. In spite of 
overwhelming odds, Joe Johnston, that "great master of 
logistics",* skillfully eluded Sherman, and struck him se- 
verely without bringing on a general engagement. Hood, 
superseding Johnston, surrendered Atlanta; and Sherman, 
having seized the granary of the Southern Confederacy, de- 
termined to march north, via Savannah, Charleston, and 
Columbia, unite with Grant and "get Lee beeween his thumb 
and his forefinger."! Sherman's march through Georgia, 
in which he consumed twenty million dollars' worth of 
property and destroyed four times as much, is vividly por- 
trayed in some histories and encyclopedias as a "triumphal 
march;" and Northern poets surprised Sherman by singing 
him into immortality. J 

All this is written in letters of blood and agony upon the 
hearts of Southern women. Their sufferings, their 
fears, their unutterable dread, no pen can describe, and 
imagination itself turns pale with despair when asked to 
depict these horrors. As to whether Halleck and Sherman 
intended that their plan of campaign should be so interpreted 



*This compliment is quoted from Gen. Richard Taylor, the eminent soldier. 

t See Appleton's Cyclopedia Amer. Biog., V, p. 505, for a very striking picture of 
Sherman showing President Lincoln and others how easily this could be done. 

JLittle Laura Gait's refusing quite recently to sing this song in school made her a 
heroine in the South, and the veterans conferred great honors upon her. 



THE WOMEN OF THE CONFEDERACY 231 



and executed, an omniscient God has already rendered his 
verdict ; but no one can either deny or palliate the pilf erings 
and the plunderings, the bullyings and the brutalities, the 
oaths and the execrations, committed, uttered, and gloried 
in by Sherman's "bummers" and Wilson's and Kllpatrick's 
"raiders," in their "triumphal" march through Georgia into 
South Carolina. 

"But for these women, the rebels would have surrendered 
long ago," was a favorite ejaculation of the doughty war- 
riors. "Get up, old woman; praying will do you no good 
now," said an officer to an old lady that was saying her 
morning prayers as the crowd burst in upon her. A few 
chivalrous Federal soldiers tried to stop these fearful bru- 
talities ; and some, secretly bringing food to those who had 
seen the last crust snatched from the' hands of crying 
children, apologized for the brutalities. 

Graves were opened in the hope of finding treasure, and 
the bodies of the dead — white and black — literally left to 
dogs and to vultures. 

In Virginia, also, similar atrocities were committed. In 
Williamsburg, the old College of William and Mary was 
burned, its tombs rifled, and its books saved only by brave 
and patriotic women. The noble women of the place were 
cursed and shot at, but generally by stragglers or other 
brutes not under McClellan's control. The Military Insti- 
tute at Lexington was burned, and the Valley of Virginia 
so desolated that "a crow in passing over it had to carry his 
rations."* 



♦This classic phrase will make the name of Sheridan's army immortal, long after T. B. 
Read's poem, Sheridan's Bide, has passed into oblivion. When the South produces 



232 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

One of the most touching pictures of Southern life during 
the war is the scene around Atlanta after the fall of that city. 
The Confederate authorities opened a provision store where 
provisions were exchanged for minie balls. Many of the 
needy — and nearly all were needy — women of the country 
around Atlanta turned out with baskets to gather up the 
balls lying on the battlefields. A perfect godsend was an 
old exploded magazine, around which great "lead-mines" 
were discovered by the poor suffering women. Great was 
their joy when their heavy baskets were exchanged for food 
to keep the family from actual starvation. 

When the army passed by on its "triumphal" march to 
meet the forces of Joseph E. Johnston, a very prominent 
commander is reported to have said that he left behind him 
a very able lieutenant to complete his work, namely, "Gen- 
eral Starvation." 

XIII 

The Women Decline to Sutrende* 

Some grim humor lights up even the lurid horror of this 
march of the vandals. It was reported that all the boys 
would be killed to keep them from becoming rebels in the 
'future. Tn some places, accordingly, mothers dressed up 
their boys in girls' clothes. One of these boy-girls was 
sliding down the banisters, and the anxious mother called 
out, "Bessie, my son, come down from there." "Ah," said 

another Poe, he will write The Crow and give the Southern view of the triumphal 
ride. 



THE WOMEN OF THE CONFEDERACY 233 

a heroic "bummer," who was paying his respects to the 
silver and other valuables, "I thought it was strange that 
all the children in this state were girls." 

Caligula said that he wished all the Romans had one neck, 
so that he might use his famous axe with great effect and 
with little exertfon. A famous hero of the "triumphal 
march" is reported to have said that he would bring all the 
women of Georgia and of South Carolina to the washtub. 
Not all the perfumes of Arabia can sweeten the names of 
the men that carried torch, famine, and insult to the women 
and children of the South, or of him who, in his "Order 
Number 28," offered an egregious and nameless insult to 
the noble women of New Orleans. 

The kindest friends that the famishing women and 
children found in the "triumphal" army were the horses. 
They must have had Hebrew owners, for they carried out 
faithfully the old Mosaic command to leave some gleanings 
for the poor and the stranger. These kind creatures left 
corn on the ground, corn in the troughs and mangers, corn 
in the old mahogany bureau drawers used as troughs by 
the vandal army. What a godsend to the conquered wo- 
men and children ! After the invading hosts moved on, the 
wretched, shivering, terror-stricken women scratched up 
this corn, separated it from the dirt and stuff into which 
much of it had fallen, and postponed a few days what seemed 
inevitable starvation. 

As a result of these privations, many feeble women, 
children, and old men actually perished. One of General 
Longstreet's brigadiers said quite recently that two of his 
children died from lack of proper nourishment 



234 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Salt became very scarce all over the South, and the South- 
ern housekeeper was often at her wits' ends to supply the de- 
ficiency. Old meat house floors were carefully scraped and 
the salt boiled out of the mixed earth and drippings. 

Still the "liars" and "rebels," as the "boys" and "bum- 
mers" called our dear women, would not surrender; would 
not write the letters that might have disbanded the armies of 
Lee, Hood, and Johnston. The Grecian women, during the 
Trojan war, wrote to their husbands that, if they did not 
come home, other men would soon usurp their places; the 
women of the South wrote to their husbands, sons, and 
lovers not to come home until they had driven the invader 
back across the Potomac. Again, the South had no faith- 
less Helens to coquette with the Northern soldiery. While 
the Greeks were besieging Troy to punish Paris, son of 
Priam, for enticing away the wife of the king of Sparta, 
that heartless wanton was placidly living in Troy, in the 
constant society of the man who had thus betrayed his 
hospitality. The Helens of the South regarded the foe with 
unutterable loathing, and only abject dread kept them from 
showing their disgust more than they did. The few mar- 
riages that took place between Southern girls and Northern 
soldiers after the war were generally bread-and-butter af- 
fairs, Cupid being absent altogether. 

XIV 

Heroines in Homespun 

In nothing was woman's self-denial more marked than in 
the clothes with which she gladly disfigured herself for the 



THE WOMEN OF THE CONFEDERACY 235 

sake of her country. It may be said without fear of con- 
tradiction that no women in the world have ever dressed 
more tastefully than the ladies of the South. A Southern 
girl in a cheap muslin is often "queen of hearts" in the ball 
room or the parlor. During the war, however, the South- 
ern woman willingly parted with fashion plates, mantua- 
makers, and milliners. Dragging her grandmother's long 
disused loom out of the dusty attic, she wove herself "home- 
spun" for dresses, used old buttons long out of fashion, and, 
when these wore out, bored holes in persimmon seeds and 
covered them with the same fabric that her dress was made 
of. Her grandmother's old dresses were taken out of 
chests and drawers long given up to moths and to dust, and 
the lovely girls of the South walked unflinchingly up the 
church aisle, flaunting the old gourd and the palm-leaf pat- 
terns of bygone generations. Dyeing was much in vogue, 
and many dresses were, with the aid of sundry plants and 
herbs, often changed in color to suit the seasons. Curtain 
chintzes were often used for dress material. Late in the 
war, the mere wearing of clothes was all that was expected, 
fit, shape, "set" and material being little noticed. By tacit 
consent, no lady ever laughed at the costume of another. 
The one supreme object was to exist, keep soul and body 
together, while the men were fighting for fireside, home, and 
country. 

At first, old hats were "fixed up" and "made over" until 
the parts refused to hang together. Then corn shucks and 
palmetto were called into requisition. After ribbon was out 
of the question, hats were trimmed with dress goods, such 



23 6 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

as shepherd's plaid homespun, and with almost any wretched 
stuff they could find in the attic, or on the shelves of country 
merchants. 

Stockings were knit from cotton spun and twisted on the 
plantation. Shoes were made of oilcloth by the plantation 
cobbler, and fit accordingly. Sherman's "triumphal" heroes 
had no little sport ridiculing Southern ladies into whose 
presence they could not have come except in companies of 
thousands supported by pistols and bayonets. 

XV 

Her Monuments ana Histories 

The surrender at Appomattox surprised, amazed, stupe- 
fied the women of the South. They could not, would not, 
believe that such a thing was possible. Like General Tay- 
lor, they never surrendered. For four long years, they had 
shut their eyes to the possibility of failure ; when it came, it 
completely dazed them. Erelong, however, their spirits 
began to rally. They saw that the men needed comfort, 
help, and inspiration ; and where else could they find it save 
in the smiles of her who had cheered them in the long con- 
flict ? The power of recuperation, of rallying after a great 
blow, for which the Southern people are now noted, came to 
their assistance, and the women of the South had no little 
share in that kindly gift of a merciful Providence. In a 
short while, they began to take heart and to hope for the 
future. Accordingly, when the soldier limped back to his 



THE WOMEN OF THE CONFEDERACY 237 

dismantled home, his fences gone, his slaves either gone 
away, or waiting sulkily to see what part of Marster's place 
"Mars Linkum" would give each one of them — penniless, 
dejected, hopeless — the queen of that once cheerful and 
happy home met him at the door with a loving embrace and 
a kiss as fresh as that of the day of betrothal, told him how 
proud she was that he had done his duty, thanked God that 
he was spared to her and the little ones, and pointed him 
hopefully to the future. 

As soon as she had had time to give an air of cleanliness 
and of refinement — not of real comfort — to the dismantled 
house, and make the place, however humble, look a little 
homelike, she went out to gather spring flowers to deck the 
graves of the fallen heroes. Out of their first earnings, she 
spared a few shillings to help with a monument to the "un- 
returning." From then till now, her zeal has never abated, 
and, on court-greens, in cemeteries, in hamlets, towns, and 
cities all over the South, she is rearing shafts, statues, col- 
umns, and pyramids of granite, of bronze and of marble, to 
hand down to unborn generations the name and the fame of 
the Confederate soldier. 

Like the great mass of the old soldiers, she offers no 
apologies. She is not sorry for the fight they made, and is 
sorry they were not successful. If she was the "truest pa- 
triot," she was also the "biggest rebel." She has never been 
reconstructed. She refuses to sympathize with any one- 
armed Union soldier that she is thrown with, and, if she 
can say it without being too abrupt and rude, tells him that 
he would have two arms if he had staid at home and "minded 



238 HALF.-HOVRS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

his own business." Her opinion of "the new scalawag" and 
of certain recent politicians, speakers, and writers of the 
North can best be expressed in sign language, the English 
with its 300,000 words being utterly inadequate. Her con- 
tempt for renegade Southerners is absolutely beyond the 
imagination of an unabridged dictionary. 

She is now organizing societies to save her father's name 
from being branded with treason and rebellion. She hurls 
back in scorn the charge that her father was a traitor and 
a "rebel." Whether the people that persist in making this 
charge be penny-a-liners in some newspaper office, or editors 
of influential journals; whether they be ignorant and un- 
cultured "schoolmarms" in some obscure village, or learned 
professors in rich universities, she indignantly denounces 
them as slanderers, and confidently appeals to history to 
vindicate the name and the honor of her father, either lying 
in a far-distant soldier's grave, or bearing his "good gray 
head" proudly aloft in advancing years among a people that 
delight to honor him. 

The women of Carthage are famous for turning their hair 
into bowstrings, and hurling great stones on the Romans. 
The women of Jerusalem fought like hyenas when the Holy 
City was besieged by the armies of Caesar. The women of 
Londonderry earned immortal fame during the siege of their 
city by the French and the Irish. All glory to these, we say, 
and we envy them not their melancholy honors. But, when 
Clio, the muse of history, puts her trumpet to her seonian 
lips and looks down on the nations for a woman to herald to 
fame, she will turn the star-like glory of her immortal eyes 



THE WOMEN OF THE CONFEDERACY 239 

to her who, hungry and thirsty as her soul fainted in her, 
clad in garments that provoked the ridicule of a brutal sol- 
diery, saw the bread dragged from the mouth of her crying 
infant and the fire devouring the home of her fathers, saw 
the graves of her dead rifled and the bones of her children 
exposed to the dogs and the vultures, and yet hurled defiance 
at the brutal invader, while crying, "Would God that I had 
other sons to send to the front of battle !" 



2 40 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

CHAPTER VI 

LEE AND HIS PALADINS 
I 

Lee Goes with His State 

THIS is a book of sketches. Its object is to pass very 
rapidly over great wars, especially those treated fully 
in all the histories. In regard, then, to the campaigns 
of Lee, Jackson, Joseph E. Johnston, Albert Sidney John- 
ston, Forrest, and other heroes of the South, we shall speak 
very briefly, going into details in those matters only which 
are either overlooked or treated too lightly in many text- 
books. 

The first four men named above were "West Pointers." 
They were sent to West Point by their states, and their 
education was paid for out of the taxes paid by the states 
that sent them. They were not objects of charity. When 
they left the Academy, they had as much right to resign 
from the "old army" as any other officers. Some writers 
of history speak of them as stealing their education from 
the United States, and treacherously turning their swords 
against the generous friend that had given them an educa- 
tion. 

We have already seen that Lee and other Southern cadets 
were taught at West Point that a state had the right to se- 




R. E. LEE 



LEE AND HIS PALADINS 241 

cede from the Union.* General Lee deplored secession. He 
simply "went with his state." Most of the Southern men 
in the "old army" "went with their states." As soon as Al- 
bert Sidney Johnston heard that Texas had seceded, he re- 
signed an honorable position in the United States army, 
rode into the wilderness between his post and his state, and 
offered her his services. Jackson was a states-rights Demo- 
crat, and, after Virginia seceded, accepted a position in her 
forces, taking the cadets of the Virginia Military Institute 
with him as drillmasters. 

All the Southern leaders believed in states rights. They 
believed that their supreme allegiance was due the state, and 
that at her call they should leave the Federal service and 
help to drive back any army that crossed the Potomac. In 
1 86 1, few men in the South believed otherwise. 

II 

The Hall of Fame 

In 1 86 1, Colonel R. E. Lee was prominent in the United 
States army. He was offered the command of the forces 
levied to invade Virginia. When Virginia elected him one 
of her major-generals, he accepted, saying that only in her 
defense would he ever draw his sword. 

In the spring of 1862, General Lee became famous. In 
defending Richmond against McClellan, he took his place 
among the greatest commanders of history. 

Every student has read often about the Seven Days' bat- 

*See pages 188, 189. 

16 



242 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

ties. In these, Mechanicsville, Gaines's Mill, Frazier's Farm, 
Savage's Station, White Oak Swamp, and Malvern Hill, it 
will be recalled, Lee with 60,000 troops drove McClellan's 
115,000 men away from Richmond to their gunboats in 
James river. Richmond was saved. The world had a new 
hero. 

John B. Magruder has received slight mention in our his- 
tories. This great engineer-soldier ought to be immortal. 
When McClellan landed at the end of the Peninsula and set 
out for Richmond, which was totally unprotected, Magruder 
with 1 1 ,000 men blocked his way for a month and held the 
115,000 men at bay until General Joseph E. Johnston could 
come down with 63,000 troops to defend the Confederate 
capital. General Johnston being seriously wounded, Gen- 
eral Lee was put in command, with the results already 
stated. 

These battles cost the South dearly. At Seven Pines fell 
the noble General Robert Hatton, of Tennessee; General J. 
J. Pettigrew, the great Carolinian, was wounded and cap- 
tured; and Wade Hampton, the Rupert of Carolina, was 
seriously wounded. McClellan's "On to Richmond" made 
Lee famous. It also immortalized Jeb Stuart. As long as 
history is read, as long as men love chivalry, Stuart's ride 
around McClellan will charm readers and hearers. To have 
been one of Stuart's 1,200 troopers, riding around Mc- 
Clellan's army, being chased by overwhelming numbers, im- 
provising a bridge from an old barn, and getting back safely 
to tell General Lee all he wished to know about the enemy 
«— this will be enough glory for any old Confederate grand- 



LEE AND HIS PALADINS 243 

sire. In this ride fell the gallant Captain William Latane 
(Latany), whose burial at the hands of several Southern 
women is famed in art, poetry, and tradition. Others be- 
sides Stuart won fame by the great ride. The "flower of 
Cavaliers" was ably supported by Col. W. H. F. Lee, Col. 
Fitzhugh Lee, Col. W. T. Martin, of Mississippi, and by 
Breathed's (Breth-ed) artillery. 

McClellan made war like a gentleman. His letter of July 
7, 1862, to President Lincoln, advising that the war should 
be conducted so as to command the respect of mankind and 
the smile of Providence, is one of the noblest chapters in 
the sad volume of civil conflict. 

The North mustered another army. This, under the 
command of Major-General John Pope, was ordered to 
crush Lee and capture Richmond. Pope and McClellan 
must not unite their forces. In order to prevent this, Lee 
determined to feign an attack upon the Federal capital. On 
August 29th, 30th, and 31st, 1862, the Confederates under 
Jackson, Longstreet, Lee, and others crushed Pope on the 
field of Second Manassas. Here "queer lovable" Dick Ewell 
lost a leg. Here, also, General W. N. Pendleton, the fight- 
ing parson, made a reputation as artillerist, and Colonel 
Stephen D. Lee, another artillerist, "turned the tide of battle, 
and consummated the victory."* When their ammunition 
gave out, the Southern troops fought with rocks most gal- 
lantly. 

In this battle, Lee had 49,000; the Federals, about 74,000. 

♦Jefferson Davis. 



244 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

III 

"Maryland, My Maryland" 

"Johnny Reb" now crosses into Maryland. If he can get 
to Baltimore, he will meet with a warm reception from 
thousands of aunts, uncles, and cousins in that center of reb- 
eldom. Had not Randall stirred the Southern heart? 
Certainly Maryland will rise Up and greet her sister Vir- 
ginia when she comes to drive "the despot's heel" off "her 
shore," and to hurl his "torch" from her "temple door." 

"The best-laid plans of mice and men 
Gang aft a-gley," 

says the poet. So proved it with the plans of General Lee. 
The farmers of western Maryland were cooler than icebergs 
when the "rebel horde," as Whittier calls them, rode into 
Frederick town; they could not understand that the bare- 
footed, ragged soldiers of Lee and Jackson had come from 
homes of comfort, cleanliness, and elegance, and that they 
had marched their shoes off their feet and their clothes off 
their backs in defense of mighty principles. 

McClellan was sent against Lee. At Sharpsburg, or 
Antietam, on the 17th of September, 1862, McClellan 
with 87,000 men and Lee with 35,000 fought one of the 
bloodiest battles in all history. Lee was supported by able 
lieutenants. He himself commended the Washington Ar- 
tillery and John R. Cooke's North Carolina regiment for 
what they did in the battle, and Longstreet, in his war his- 
tory, speaks admiringly of Hood and D. H. Hill. 



LEE AND HIS PALADINS 245 

After the battle of Sharpsburg, Lee made a leisurely re- 
treat into Virginia. McClellan, for not crushing him, was 
again superseded. 

Maryland, then, did not "breathe" and "burn." She was 
as cool as an icicle. Thousands of her sons, however, en- 
tered the Southern army and navy, and the South will ever 
honor the names of Semmes, Buchanan, Archer, Winder, 
and other noble Marylanders. 

IV 

Marye's Heights and Chancellorsville 

Burnside superseded McClellan. With 100,000 men, he 
moved against Lee, who was entrenched at Fredericksburg, 
Virginia, with 78,000 troops. Both sides fought with in- 
trepid bravery. At Marye's Heights, just outside of the old 
colonial town of Fredericksburg, the home of Mary Wash- 
ington, the two armies engaged in deadly grapple. The 
Federals charged Marye's Heights, held by 7,000 Georgian? 
and Carolinians, supported by the famous Washington Ar- 
tillery. The troops of Cobb, Kershaw, and Ransom bore 
themselves heroically. Cobb and Maxcy Gregg fell dead, 
and the brave Cooke, of North Carolina, was severely 
wounded. Lee used only 20,000 of his men; the position 
secured beforehand served him instead of thousands. This 
battle added to the fame of Lee. Here, also, appeared 
"the gallant Pelham," of Stuart's horse artillery, whose Na- 
poleon gun became famous in history, song, and legend. 



246 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

This was in December. The campaign was over, except 
that the Confederate cavalry under Hampton, Stuart, W. H. 
F. Lee, and Fitzhugh Lee raided in the Federal rear and 
caused great uneasiness in Washington. 

Jeb Stuart was fond of a joke. He telegraphed to the 
Federal quartermaster-general in Washington that the mules 
he had furnished Burnside were so mean that they could not 
pull the Federal cannon to the rebel camp. Stuart baffled 
the small critics. They did not understand how a man could 
combine mirth and merriment with high seriousness and su- 
preme ability. He is well called "the Rupert of the Con- 
federacy." If he had lived in France in the early part of 
the nineteenth century, he would have been one of Na- 
poleon's most famous marshals. 

Burnside disappears from history. In the spring of 1863, 
General Joseph Hooker, at the head of "the finest army on 
the planet," crossed the Rappahannock river above Freder- 
icksburg and grappled with Lee in the now famous Spottsyl- 
vania Wilderness. Lee had 57,000 men; Hooker, 113,000. 
Jackson and Lee planned an attack upon Hooker's right 
flank, which was brilliantly executed by the dread Stonewall. 
Alas! the price was terrible. It was during this move- 
ment that Jackson fell at the hands of some of his own men 
and left a vacancy that was never filled. General A. P. Hill 
was wounded, and Lee was thus doubly crippled. The 
morning after Jackson fell, Stuart was put in command of 
Jackson's corps, and charged the enemy, crying, "Charge 
and remember Jackson." 

Lee's fame now reached its meridian. No greater victory 



LEE AND HIS PALADINS 247 



was ever won than that at Chancellorsvillei in the Virginia 
wilderness. 

"All the World Wondered" 

The South had been suffering serious reverses. Sidney 
Johnston's place had never been filled in the West, and 
Sherman, Grant, and Thomas had been gaining advantages 
in that department. Something must be done to cheer the 
Southern people. 

Lee again crosses the Potomac and "carries the war into 
Africa." In three corps, under Ewell, A. P. Hill, and Long- 
street, the Army of Northern Virginia marches into Penn- 
sylvania. They stumble upon the Federal army, now led by 
General George G. Meade. The rest is familiar to every 
schoolboy. Every reader knows that the South received her 
death blow at Gettysburg. 

Some call this "the high water mark of the Rebellion;" 
we call it the turning-point in the War between the States. 
Let us take up a few points which are practically ignored in 
all school histories. 

First: Why was Lee ignorant of Meade's whereabouts? 
For this, some blame Stuart, whose cavalry was "the eyes 
and ears" of Lee's army. Stuart's men say that he was 
busy destroying Federal supplies and baggage wagons, 
while others say that Jeb was playing pranks and was neg- 
lecting his business. 

Another disputed point is : Where was Longstreet ? He 
was expected to come up very early on the 2nd of July, but 



248 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

did not come till the afternoon. Again: Why did Long- 
street not reinforce Pickett in his famous charge? This is 
a hot question. With five thousand more men, Pickett 
might have taken the Federal heights and won the battle. 
What then? 

Third : Why did General Lee's lieutenants not carry out 
his orders instead of arguing with him, or following their 
own ideas ? By their delays, the Federals had time to bring 
up fresh forces and seize the best positions. 

At the end of the second day, the advantage was with the 
South. Lee's plan for the third day (July 3) was to pierce 
the Federal center, then attack Meade's right and left, and 
hurl his army back in confusion. For this great effort 
14,000 or 15,000 of Lee's best men were selected, and put 
under the leadership of Pickett, Pettigrew, and Trimble. 

This is usually known as Pickett's charge. "All the 
world wondered." We may also rhyme, "Some one had 
blundered." After Pettigrew's division was flanked, Pick- 
ett was left unsupported and had to fall back with fearful 
mortality. 

The gallant Armistead, of Maryland, fell at the cannon's 
mouth, on the heights of Gettysburg. Garnett, Barksdale, 
Semmes, and Pender were either killed or mortally wounded. 
Hampton, Pettigrew, Trimble, Hood, Kemper, and G. T. 
Anderson were more or less seriously wounded. 

Some blamed this man; some, that. General Lee blamed 
no one, but took all the blame upon himself. To Wilcox, 
who came weeping to him, he said, "Never mind, General ; 
all this has been my fault." To the survivors of the charge, 
he said, "All this will come right in the end. . . . . All 
good men must rally." 



LEE AND EI 8 PALADINS 249 

Lee had 62,000 men ; Meade, over 100,000. The Federals 
had both numbers and position. If the South had followed 
up her victory of the first day, she would have had the choice 
of position. If Lee's subordinates had carried out his plans 
the second day, Meade's fresh thousands would not have 
seized the commanding points of the battlefield. If Pickett, 
Pettigrew, and Trimble had been properly supported on the 
third day, Lee would have marched into Washington and 
Philadelphia. If — "if is a big word," we often say. A 
Southern poet who served in the Confederate army has 
written : 

"God lives! He forged the iron will 
That clutched and held that trembling hill." 

That poem is popular in the North, but not south of the 
Potomac. "God lives !" Yes, the South believes that firmly. 
She believes in a God of Battles, and that God rules the 
destinies of nations. And yet the great mass of the South- 
ern people believe as firmly that the South would have won 
the battle of Gettysburg and with that her independence, if 
General Lee's wishes had been obeyed as Jackson would 
have obeyed them. 

General Lee is reported to have said that, if Jackson had 
lived, the South would have won the battle of Gettysburg. 
The Southern people believe so firmly. 

Some strong Calvinists in the South believe that Jack- 
son's death was a part of the divine plan to maintain the 
Union. A few other men believe that God used this four 
years' war to abolish slavery. But the great majority of 



250 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

our people believe that the failure to carry out General Lee's 
plans and orders led to the downfall of the Confederacy. 



VI 



Grapple of the Giants 

Many lost heart after Gettysburg; more gave up hope 
after Vicksburg fell. Still the ragged veterans of Lee 
would follow him blindly, unquestioningly. 

A new star had risen in the Northern heavens. In the 
spring of 1864, the hero of Fort Donelson and of Vicks- 
burg, General Ulysses S. Grant, was made commander-in- 
chief of the Union forces. He advanced to the Rapidan 
river, to the Wilderness already so famous. It was sixty 
miles to Richmond. In his way lay Lee's army of 64,000; 
Grant had 141,000. It will take him eleven months to get 
to Richmond. To crush Lee, he adopts the "hammer poli- 
cy;" will "fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." 
He will refuse to exchange prisoners on the ground that it 
will shorten the war and be more just to the Northern men 
confined in Southern prisons. 

Grant started for Richmond early in May. In his path 
stood his wily antagonist. Whenever Grant moved south- 
ward, Lee threw himself in his way, and dealt a terrific 
blow. Day after day, in that bloody month, men fought like 
beasts in the jungles of the Wilderness. The scene shifted 
rapidly from the Rapidan to the North Anna, the Pamun- 
key, the Chickahominy, the James. At Cold Harbor came 
the climax of the duel. In about half an hour, Grant lost 



LEE AND HIS PALADINS 251 

12,737 men.* In the whole campaign from the Rapidan to 
the James, Grant lost 60,000 men, as many as Lee had in his 
whole army. 

During this campaign, Longstreet was disabled, and Gen- 
eral Micah Jenkins killed. Stuart, also, fell in these sad 
hours. While heading off an attack upon Richmond by 
General Philip H. Sheridan, Stuart was killed at Yellow 
Tavern. His grave in Hollywood cemetery, Richmond, 
should be kept green forever, a Southern Mecca. 

Grant crossed the James and laid siege to Petersburg, 
the key to Richmond. Lee would have let Richmond go. 
He would have given up Richmond, united his army with 
that of Joseph E. Johnston in the south, crushed Sherman, 
and then confronted Grant in Virginia. The Confederate 
government, however, would not give up Richmond: its 
mania was to hold cities rather than to crush armies. 

General Lee saw that the end was coming. He had only 
40,000 men; Grant 111,000. Lee's men were starved and 
ragged. His wounded were suffering for food and medi- 
cine. His one idea now was to keep the enemy from break- 
ing through the long thin gray line that stood sentinel at 
the back door of Richmond. 

April 9, 1865, came the surrender at Appomattox. Only 
8,000 men were armed ; the rest were either unable to bear 
arms or had no equipment. "All was lost save honor." 

A. P. Hill breathed out his noble spirit on the ragged edge 
of conflict. John B. Gordon, "the Chevalier Bayard of the 

♦Lee's Lee, page 343. 



252 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Confederacy," led the last charge, and "fought his corps to 
a frazzle." The young flag went down in defeat; 

"Yet 'tis wreathed around with gloty, 
And 'twill live in 6ong and story, 
Though its folds are in the dust." 



JACKSON AND HIS "FOOT-CAVALRY" 253 

CHAPTER y II 
JACKSON AND HIS « FOOT-CAVALRY" 

I 
" Poo* White Trash" 

A PHRASE to conjure with is "Lee and Jackson." It 
always elicits applause in the South; frequently, in 
other sections. Both men "went with their states." 
Each represented a civilization — one the Cavalier and the 
other the Puritan. 

Mrs. Jackson's life of her husband is one of the notable 
books of the last century, and should be read by every 
schoolboy. One part of it has been grossly misunderstood. 
She tells us that General Jackson's first two American pro- 
genitors came over as "indented servants," and married 
some time after their arrival. This plain statement has 
been distorted by some writers. It has been construed to 
mean that Jackson's people were "poor white trash," and 
that he was a social miracle. The whole thing is nonsensi- 
cal. Many fine men and women, unable to pay their pas- 
sage, permitted planters or others to advance the money for 
their passage — a large sum in those days — and let them 
"work it out" after their arrival. The Jacksons were a 
sturdy, substantial stock, which has produced fine, able, and 
progressive men for several generations. Thomas J. Jack- 



254 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

son, as boy and youth, was very ordinary. No one at West 
Point dreamed that he would ever be distinguished. Few 
people in Lexington thought that he was anything more 
than a "cranky professor." In those days, he showed no 
special capacity for anything except for doing his duty at 
all times and in all places. 

Only when powder was burning did his eye gleam with 
a mighty lustre. He was like the steed that snuffeth the 
battle from afar. His genius is for war. It will begin to 
show itself on the fields of Mexico, when he is rapidly pro- 
moted for gallantry at Vera Cruz, Contreras, Churubusco, 
and Chapultepec ; will oft and anon give some inklings of its 
presence, when at the cannon's roar on the drill ground at 
the Virginia Military Institute, Major Jackson "would grow 
more erect, the grasp upon his sabre would tighten, the 
quiet eyes would flash, the large nostrils would dilate, and 
the calm, grave face would glow with the proud spirit of the 
warrior." It will disclose itself more fully at Manassas 
when he says to General Bee, "Sir, we will give them the 
bayonet;" but will reach its meridian glory when he drives 
four Federal armies out of his beloved Valley, falls like 
lightning upon McClellan's flank at Gaines's Mill and after- 
wards upon Hooker's at Chancellorsville, hurling battalion 
after battalion of the enemy back upon one another in wild 
confusion. 

II 

Jackson's Political Views 

What led Major Jackson to enter the Southern army? 



JACKSON AND HIS "FOOT-CAVALRY" 255 

Was it ambition? No; for, though he might have been 
swayed by that motive in his earlier days, he was now too 
conscientious — morbidly conscientious — to fight for any 
cause that he did not believe in heartily. Was he, as some 
would say, driven by public opinion ? As well try to brow- 
beat the falls of Niagara or intimidate the rock of Gibraltar. 

We have Mrs. Jackson's statement : he "was strongly for 
the Union, but believed firmly in states rights. If Virginia 
secedes, he will go with his state." He would have pre- 
ferred to fight in the Union rather than secede. This was 
the feeling of a large number of Southern people. 

Lincoln's call for troops decided Virginia. Up to the 
day of that call, Lexington was almost solid against seces- 
sion. After that, Lexington and the whole state east of the 
Alleghanies were in favor of secession. 

Major Jackson believed, also, in slavery. Moreover, he 
owned a few "servants." He believed that slavery was 
sanctioned by the Bible, and that it was God's mode of chris- 
tianizing the African. He conducted, a Sunday school for 
negroes; had his servants regularly at his family prayers; 
treated them kindly and tenderly. 

HI 

"Stone Wall " 

Major Jackson offered his sword to Virginia. He was 
commissioned colonel, then brigadier-general. At Manas- 
sas, July 21, 1861, his great career began. There he was 
dubbed "Stonewall." All day long, that hot July day, the 



256 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

men of the North and of the South dashed against each 
other, bravely, madly, frantically. The pent-up hatred of 
decades and of generations vented itself in the whistling bul- 
let, the clashing bayonet, and the screaming mortar. The 
very demons of hell must have danced for joy as they saw 
two great Christian civilizations surging and foaming 
towards each other in bloody billows on the red fields of 
Manassas. Who, in God's name, shall give account thereof 
in the day of judgment? 

Who is there ? Carolina and her sisters, led by Hampton, 
Bee, Bartow, and others; Loaisiana with her Tigers and the 
Washington Artillery, and the "peerless Beauregard ;" Vir- 
ginia, led by Joe Johnston, and following Stuart's plume. 
"General, they are beating us back," cries Bee to Jackson. 
"Sir, we will give them the bayonet," answers the Spartan 
of Lexington. "Look! there stands Jackson like a stone 
wall. Rally behind the Virginian," cried Bee, as he yielded 
up his noble spirit. 

So Jackson became "Stonewall." All other theories are 
utterly without foundation. 

Who saved the day at Manassas ? Who was the hero of 
that battle? "I," said the sparrow, "with my bow and ar- 
row; I killed Cock Robin." There is glory enough for all. 
Jackson checked the onset at the Henry house ; Kirby Smith 
and Elzey, later in the day, brought reinforcements that 
turned the tide of battle. 

Jackson was at first anxious to take Washington. After 
hearing the statements of President Davis, General John- 
ston, and others as to the condition of the troops and the 




T. J. JACKSON 



JACKSON AND HIS "FOOT-CAVALRY" 257 

scarcity of cavalry, he, however, changed his mind. For 
not taking Washington or allowing Jackson to do so, Presi- 
dent Davis used to be soundly berated in some quarters. At 
the time, Jackson was eager. He wished to introduce then 
and there his policy of "ceaseless invasion." 

IV 
The True Stonewall Jackson 

We have The True George Washington and The True 
Abraham Lincoln: we need a volume entitled The True 
Stonewall Jackson. 

Of no other great man has so much nonsense been written. 
Even Southern tradition has given us a somewhat distorted 
picture of this great hero. A few plain facts may be given. 

Jackson is often spoken of as a cold, fanatical, cranky man 
that would throw a damper over any social gathering. This 
is a very unfair picture. We admit that he was not gen- 
erally what is called sociable or genial. He was a taciturn, 
self-contained man, a good listener, not given to much talk- 
ing. General Dick Taylor says, "If silence is golden, Jack- 
son was a bonanza." Nor was he addicted to jesting or 
jocularity. He, however, enjoyed a clean joke, but in his 
own way, laughing quietly, and soon turning to some moral 
or religious question. 

His home life was simple and beautiful. The accounts 
that we have of the last winter he spent in the bosom of his 
family are extremely touching. His devotion as a husband 
was tender beyond expression. 
17 



258 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

His religious life is often misunderstood. He was given 
to neither bigotry nor cant He was emphatically a man of 
faith and of prayer. He believed implicitly in a God of 
Battles, and always prayed for divine assistance. 

Some have charged him with being proud, and too tena- 
cious of his personal rights. These charges are utterly mis- 
leading. He did tender his resignation when the govern- 
ment at Richmond interfered in the internal affairs of his 
department ; but he did it in the interests of the Confederacy. 
Some thought that he was unjustly harsh towards inferior 
officers; but he was, we believe, never severe except when 
his orders had been neglected or disobeyed. We do not say 
that he was perfect. We do say, however, that, if General 
Jackson's ideas of discipline had prevailed throughout the 
Southern army, the South would have had not only the best 
fighters but the best soldiers in modern history.* 

Jackson believed in "war to the hilt." He seems to have 
been originally in favor of giving and receiving no quarter, 
so as to make the war "short, sharp, and decisive." This 
view he waived in deference to General Lee and President 
Davis. Later on, he seems to have favored adopting the 
"black flag" in dealing with a few special leaders of the 
Union forces, 

As to General Jackson's plans of warfare: As said al- 
ready, he was in favor of "ceaseless invasion." He did not 
believe in trying to hold cities like Richmond and Vicksburg. 
He proposed to form movable columns of cavalry and horse 
artillery, to be used in carrying the war into the North, 

*This distinction, we believe, was drawn by Gen. Joseph E.Johnston. 



JACKSON AND HIS "FOOT-CAVALRY" 259 

destroying crops, capturing cities, and rarely risking a battle. 
If — (but there's the big word 'if again) — Jackson's plan 
had been adopted, and such men as Morgan, Forrest, Stuart, 
Sidney Johnston, and Jackson himself had led these cease- 
less columns across the Potomac, the South might have 
gained her independence. 

This is a book of polemics. Its object is to defend the 
South, her leaders, and her soldiers. We shall eradicate 
the poison wherever we find it. 

A popular ballad is Barbara Frietchie. Every boy and 
girl has read it and declaimed it. Few have ever seen 
Whittier's explanations or the refutations of Southern 
writers. Let us look at it closely. Whittier says that "a 
blush of shame" came over Jackson's face, as he saw the 
flag of the Union waving. Does any reader believe that? 
Was the pious, God-fearing hero of 1862 ashamed of what 
he had done in 1861 ? Again, Jackson is made to threaten 
with the death of a dog any man that touches a hair of 
Dame Barbara's head. What language! What an idea! 
No man in that army of Scotch Covenanters needed any 
such warning. Another flaw may be stated. Dame Bar- 
bara was bedridden and could not have got to the window 
to save her life. Another serious flaw is that Jackson's 
corps did not pass up the street that Dame Barbara lived on. 
The most serious flaw, however, is that the whole story is 
a myth, palmed off on the poet by some ill-informed person. 

These points have been made in print before. So strong 
are they that few now believe the story. Recently, how- 
ever, a prominent writer of history tells us that the Barbara 



260 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Frietchie incident really occurred at Fredericksburg, Vir- 
ginia — which we can say is absolutely without foundation, 
another myth. Possibly it was Frederick's Hall, Louisa 
county, Virginia. Try that ! 

V 
The Thunderbolt of "War 

The Valley Campaign is immortal. It put Jackson 
among the great soldiers of Christendom. Though treated 
in some volumes as raids on Banks and others, it is studied 
in some military schools of Europe as one of the greatest 
campaigns of history. The outlines are familiar to the 
young student. 

Why is Kernstown immortal ? Certainly not on account 
of the numbers. Nor can we claim it as a Confederate 
victory. It is immortal because with 3,400 men Jackson 
stopped the advance of 175,000 men upon the Southern 
capital. If the Valley forces under Shields and others had 
been permitted to join McDowell, and all these had marched 
to unite with McClellan's 105,000 advancing up the Penin- 
sula, Richmond might have fallen; and, at that time in the 
war, the fall of the capital would probably have meant the 
collapse of the Confederacy. 

Again: The battle of McDowell would seem to be un* 
important. Jackson had superior forces and a very ordinary 
antagonist ; but McDowell was part of a campaign in which 
16,000 Confederates kept 35,000 Federals from advancing 
upon Richmond and joining McClellan; and thus again a 
few thousand men under Jackson neutralized the great 
armies of the enemy. This was May 8, 1862. 



JACKSON AND HIS "FOOT-CAVALRY" 261 

Jackson's victory over Banks at Winchester was worth 
$300,000 in supplies to the Confederacy, and won Banks the 
sobriquet of "Jackson's commissary." The boys of the Val- 
ley were in high spirits. The grandsons of the men that had 
followed Andrew Lewis, Daniel Morgan, and William 
Campbell felt that they had a leader worthy of their metal. 
At Cross Keys and Port Republic, they drove four Federal 
generals rapidly to the Potomac. The "crazy professor" 
was now a world hero. 

We have already seen Jackson at Gaines's Mill, June 27. 
Some claim that he turned the tide of battle against Mc- 
Clellan, and thus saved Richmond. 

Another disputed question is, Who planned the Valley 
Campaign? Some say Lee; some, Jos. E. Johnston; others, 
Jackson. Could any other man in America have executed 
it ? That is the question before us. 

"There were heroes before Agamemnon." There were 
other great soldiers in the Valley besides Jackson. The 
South should never forget "queer Dick Ewell" — Ewell the 
Unique — and Turner Ashby, the cavalier of the Valley. 

Cedar Run was a noble victory. With 18,000 men 
Jackson defeated Banks and Sigel with 32,000. Under 
these heavy odds, Jackson's genius rose to its great propor- 
tions. Drawing his sword — the only time during the war, 
it is thought — dropping his bridle rein on his horse's neck, 
he reached over and took a flag from a standard bearer 
close by, and, waving it over his head, cried "Rally men! 
Remember Winder! Where's my Stonewall Brigade? 
Forward, men ! Forward !" The battle was soon over. 



262 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

CHAPTER VIII 
SHILOH AND ITS HEROES 



The Hero of Texas 

EVERY Southern boy and girl should know about Gen- 
eral Albert Sidney Johnston. His death may have 
lost the South her independence. 
Johnston was born in Kentucky, but lived in Texas. He 
was a distinguished officer in the "old army," and, in 1861, 
went out of the Union with Texas. He was a typical 
Southerner of the old school. After Texas seceded, General 
Johnston forwarded his resignation to Washington, but kept 
the whole matter secret so as not to permit his rank as 
general-commanding the Department of the Pacific to in- 
fluence the many adventurous Southerners settled in Cal- 
ifornia. He had foreseen the war between the sections. 
While deploring the sad state of affairs, he sympathized 
heartily with the Southern people. His dearest friends were 
Leonidas Polk and Jefferson Davis. As said already, they 
had been taught the right of secession at the West Point 
Military Academy. Johnston was of course censured bit- 
terly for "deserting his flag." Polk was censured for lay- 
ing aside his duties as bishop of Louisiana and giving the 



SHILOH AND ITS HEROES 263 

South the benefit of his military education, although the 
"fighting parsons" of the Revolution, such as Thruston and 
Muhlenburg, are national heroes. 

General Johnston was put in charge of the Western De- 
partment. His centre was Bowling Green, Kentucky. 
With only 21,000 or 22,000 men he had to face 100,000 
under such able generals as Grant, Buell, and Thomas. He 
called in vain for adequate reinforcements. 

Grant was not yet distinguished. Polk, supported by 
Pillow, Cheatham, and other heroes of the Southwest, de- 
feated him at Belmont, in spite of overwhelming numbers. 
Johnston's thin line was soon broken. The 100,000 Fed- 
erals swarmed up the Southern rivers and took Forts Henry 
and Donelson. Johnston was bitterly censured by bomb- 
proof brigadiers and editorial ink-pots. President Davis 
stood by him courageously, and refused to remove this "in- 
competent" and "cowardly" general. Lack of troops para- 
lyzed Johnston's efforts. Great generals he had in abun- 
dance; for besides those already mentioned, he had John 
Morgan and N. B. Forrest, two of the greatest cavalrymen 
ever seen on this continent. 

II 

"Freedom Shrieked When Kosciusko FelP 

So says Campbell of the Polish hero. So say many in 
regard to the death of Sidney Johnston. He was the 
brother of Jackson. The latter was Lee's "right arm;" the 
former, the greatest soldier of the Southwest, 



264 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Shiloh was a "decisive battle" of the war. If Johnston 
had lived to follow up his victory, there would have been no 
Vicksburg, no siege of Petersburg, no capture of Richmond, 
no Appomattox; Grant was defeated when Johnston fell. 
Two hours more would have driven the Federals into the 
river or forced them to surrender. "To-night," said John- 
ston, "we will water our horses in the Tennessee river." The 
Federals were in the wav of the horses. "Freedom shrieked 
when Johnston fell." 

Shiloh was a noble battle. The very flower of the South- 
west was there under Beauregard, Bragg, Polk, Hardee, 
and Breckenridge. Other great spirits were on the field. 
George W. Johnston, Provisional Governor of Kentucky, 
fell on the second day while serving as a private in a Ken- 
tucky regiment. General A. H. Gladden, of Louisiana, fell 
while leading his brigade with conspicuous gallantry. Some 
noble spirits survived the battle. Among them were For- 
rest, "the Wizard of the Saddle;" "Little Joe Wheeler," the 
hero of three wars ; Morgan, famous for his raids ; Pat Cle- 
burne, "the Stonewall of the West," who later fell on the 
bloody field of Franklin. 

Ill 

" Common Enots" 

There are "common errors" in the use of English ; there 
are equally as many in some histories. 

One of these is that General Johnston exposed himself 
recklessly at Shiloh in order to retrieve his reputation, and 




ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON 



BHILOH AND ITS HEROES 265 

mayhap show the "bomb-proof brigadiers" and others that 
his failure to hold the Bowling Green-Cumberland line with 
22,000 against 100,000 was not due to cowardice. 

The whole thing is preposterous. All the prominent 
Southern generals exposed themselves too frequently. Joe 
Johnston and Beauregard did it at Manassas. Jackson did 
it habitually. Ewell frequently rushed to the very front of 
battle. Stuart's black plume was always in front, just as 
Henry of Navarre's white plume beckoned his men ever on- 
ward. In the Wilderness, General Lee's horse was seized 
by the Texans, who said, "If you will go back, General, we 
will go forward." It was a bad though noble habit of the 
Southern leaders. In the early days of the war, the senti- 
ment of the troops rather demanded it. A sad experience 
taught them better. The loss of Sidney Johnston and 
Stonewall Jackson was the price paid for their experience. 

This custom of the Southern generals, even Grant could 
not understand. He says in his Personal Memoirs that 
the Southern troops at Shiloh could not have felt confident 
of victory, as they permitted Johnston to ride along the 
front of battle. What chains could have bound that man 
after he smelt the powder? 

Johnston was first buried in New Orleans. After the 
war, his remains were removed to Austin, Texas. Among 
his pall-bearers were Beauregard, Bragg, Buckner, Hood, 
Longstreet, and "Dick Taylor." All but one of these have 
"crossed over the river" and are resting "under the shade of 
the trees" with the dread Stonewall. 



266 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

CHAPTER IX 

THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 

I 

A Prostrate Nation 

GENERAL LEE, as already stated, surrendered April 
9, 1865. On April 26, followed the surrender of 
General Joheph E. Johnston in North Carolina; in 
May, that of General Richard Taylor in Mississippi, and 
that of General E. Kirby Smith west of the Mississippi 
river. By the last of June, there was not a Confederate 
soldier in arms against the United States government. 
Never did an army lay down its arms in better faith, or 
with more sincere acceptance of the terms offered by the 
conqueror. How these terms were kept by some of the 
conquerors, history will tell in flaming letters, calling to her 
aid essay, fiction and drama, and the eloquence of tongues 
yet unborn. General Grant acted honorably and kindly. 
Mr. Lincoln seems to have nursed no mean grudge against 
the fallen foe; but, if General Lee could have foreseen the 
events of the years from 1865 to 1876, he would have hid- 
den his ragged remnant in the Appalachian mountains, and 
two new generations of Southern youth would have kept 
up the contest to the present moment. But for the personal 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 267 

influence of General Grant, General Robert E. Lee would 
have been prosecuted for treason. President Davis, Vice- 
President Stephens, Governor Brown, of Georgia, Governor 
Clark, of Mississippi, General Howell Cobb, Senator Hill, 
of Georgia, and other prominent men were arrested and put 
in prison. The greatest sufferer was President Davis. His 
treatment by some government officials at Fortress Monroe 
reads like a chapler from the Spanish Inquisition or from a 
history of the Indians. Mrs. Davis's account of that treat- 
ment and of the disrespect shown her by one or two promi- 
nent officials at Fort Monroe, challenges the credulity of 
mankind. Mr. Davis was never brought to trial. The 
United States Government knew that an impartial jury 
might well fail to find him guilty of treason against the 
government, and that eminent lawyers were ready to argue 
his case before the world. The failure to try Mr. Davis 
was a great constitutional victory for the South, and pos- 
terity will so regard it. The North could not have proved 
that he had committed treason against the government. 

The cost of the war is almost beyond calculation. Besides 
slaves worth about two thousand million dollars, the South 
lost values of every kind, footing up at least two thousand 
million more. There was practically no money in circula- 
tion, her banks had gone to ruin, her credit was totally gone, 
all basis of credit was destroyed, her stocks and bonds were 
utterly worthless, provisions almost exhausted, bankruptcy 
was universal. The whole land lay in utter paralysis and 
ruin. 



268 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

II 

The Wolf at the Doo* 

The soldier, returning to his dismantled home, saw star- 
vation standing at his door, shaking his gaunt finger at wife 
and little ones. Soon a worse sight met his gaze: an idle, 
shiftless mass of freedmen hung around the courthouse, the 
post office and other public places, wondering when they 
could crowd the soldier's family out of their home, and 
move into it. Some of the slaves were still faithful and 
respectful; many were sullen, suspicious, grum; some in- 
solent Many looked on with maudlin curiosity and with 
ill-suppressed delight as they saw the gentlemen of the South 
hoeing their gardens, ploughing the fields, driving their own 
ox carts, or hiring themselves to some neighbor that could 
manage to give them three meals a day and a few dollars a 
month to work as laborers. The freedmen crowded to the 
towns and cities. Freedom they thought meant eternal rest. 
Wonderful stories came to them of bounteous stores from 
the boundless treasury in Washington ; and visions of forty 
acres and a mule; or, grander yet, of moving into the "big 
house" of their bankrupt masters, where they might smoke 
their pipes in the library of the "effete aristocrats," lie on 
old Marster's feather beds, and use the master's silver. 

Agriculture was totally demoralized, factories generally 
destroyed, railroads worn out and useless, farming imple- 
ments gone, neither ox nor mule nor horse left to plough 
with; fences had been burnt by the armies; many houses 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 269 

were totally dismantled, the whole land lying under the curse 
of Nineveh. 

Having made a heroic fight, the South determined to ac- 
cept heroically the arbitrament of war. Slavery she will- 
ingly surrendered ; secession as a remedy for grievances, she 
.embalmed among the mummies of Egypt ; the right of a state 
to judge of infractions of the constitution, she marked "ob- 
solete," and laid on the shelf with Lilly's Latin grammar. 
She threw herself on the mercy of her conquerors. 

The Southern people were willing and anxious to settle 
down and begin life over again. They were willing to ac- 
cept any fair government that would protect their persons, 
and the little property the war had left them; believed that 
Mr. Lincoln would treat them humanely if not kindly ; and 
were ready to bear anything to which self-respecting men 
could submit. 

Mr. Lincoln had already shown that his plan of restoring 
the Union was not one of cruelty. On December 8, 1863, 
he had offered "full pardon" to all persons (except the 
leaders of the "rebellion") that would lay down their arms, 
swear allegiance to the constitution, and promise to obey all 
acts of Congress that had been passed up to the date of his 
amnesty proclamation (December 8, 1863). He further 
said that, if one-tenth of the votes of i860 in any seceded 
state should establish a government upon the basis outlined 
above, he would recognize it as "the true government of the 
state." Representation in Congress, he said, did not rest 
with him, but with Congress. No mention was made of 
negro suffrage. Indeed, we have it on record that Mr. 



270 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Lincoln did not believe that the negro should be a voter or 
a juror, or be put upon any political or social equality with 
the white man. 

When the war closed, Mr. Lincoln said, "Let 'em up easy, 
let 'em up easy." When the question was raised whether 
to regard the Southern states as never out of the Union but 
as having temporarily cut themselves off as aliens, Mr. Lin- 
coln brushed it aside as not a practical question, but as rather 
what is called "academic," that is, technical and not worthy 
of serious discussion at such a crisis. His idea was to bring 
the seceded states into practical touch with the other states 
and restore them as soon as possible to their place in the 
Union, on condition that they surrender slavery and the 
right of secession and accept the constitution of the United 
States as the fundamental law of the land. His method was 
one of conciliation and of restoration. When violent men 
wished to treat the states as conquered provinces that had 
forfeited all the rights of statehood, he said, "We shall 
sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing 
it." 

Ill 

The Hounds of Peace 

This policy did not please Congress. A large number in 
both houses thought that Mr. Lincoln was too lenient, and 
that he was violating "the rights of humanity" and "the 
principles of republican government." Chaos reigned su- 
preme. Many were so angry with the South that they could 
not hear the voice of mercy, which "droppeth as the gentle 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 271 

dew from heaven." Shylock was whetting his knife, not on 
his sole but on his soul, demanding his pound of flesh from 
Antonio, whose argosies had gone to the bottom of the 
ocean. Mr. Lincoln was firm and inflexible, and, on April 
ii, 1865, said publicly that he still clung to his plan of 
restoration. 

To add fuel to the flame, came the assassination of Presi- 
dent Lincoln. None deplored this wild act more than the 
South and her noble ex-president. It now seems incredible 
that Andrew Johnson, the successor of Mr. Lincoln, offered 
a reward of $100,000 for the capture of Mr. Davis as an 
accomplice of the assassin. Nor was the South in any sense 
responsible. John Wilkes Booth was not strictly a Southern 
man, did not represent the South, but killed the president 
on his own motion, and probably from personal motives. 

While deploring the assassination and regretting that Mr. 
Lincoln did not live to carry out his policy, the South has 
never professed to love Mr. Lincoln. To do so would be 
arrant hypocrisy. She cannot put him along with Wash- 
ington, and rank him with the demigods. She cannot for- 
get his campaign cry of 1858; his leading a ticket avowedly 
hostile to her institutions ; his saying that he had no author- 
ity to interfere with slavery, and yet issuing the Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation ; and his straining and rending the consti- 
tution that he promised in his oath of office faithfully to 
maintain. She, however, admires his great ability, his 
shrewd common sense, his keen sagacity, and believes that he 
had more of "the milk of human kindness," less small bitter- 
ness, less desire to gloat over a fallen foe, than Andrew 
Johnson, or than the Radical majority in Congress. 



272 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

The poet tells us of fearful creatures that, "never ceasing, 
barked with wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rang a 
hideous peal." Not to push the comparison to the very 
farthest, we may say that such a chorus broke upon the earst. 
of the prostrate South after Lincoln's assassination. Many 
believed that Booth was her appointed agent. Many accused 
Jefferson Davis of being an accomplice, and, as said already, 
President Johnson offered $100,000 reward for his arrest; 
and smaller amounts were offered for other Southern gen- 
tlemen equally above such atrocious crimes as assassination. 
Thank Heaven that such charges found little credence even 
in those fearful days ! We regret that history has to notice 
ihem in this better era ; but the historian more than the poet 
must deal with "the unrelenting past," enter its most ghastly 
precincts, and walk with shuddering horror among its grin- 
ning sepulchres. 

We have all heard of "the dogs of war" ; but the South 
suffered more from the hounds of peace. 

IV 

The Reign of Tcttot 

With the accession of Andrew Johnson to the presidency, 
the South had new visions of horror. Harsh measures were 
in the air. The imprisonment of Jefferson Davis and of 
others already mentioned, the summons issued against Gen- 
eral Lee by the United States court at Norfolk, and the 
violent language used by the new president — all these things 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 273 

alarmed those that had figured prominently in the war ; and 
a number of them left the United States, and went, some to 
Cuba, some to Egypt, some to Mexico, and some to Europe. 

The Radical party in Congress thought that providence 
had come to their assistance. Now should the conquered 
South lick the dust at the feet of her enemies. Soon their 
faces fell. The president's tone changed; he became less 
bitter ; it was soon found out that he would not hang, draw 
and quarter all the Confederate leaders, but that "my policy" 
would be more human and humane than he first intended. 
This change is generally attributed to the influence of Mr. 
Seward, secretary of state, who is said to have urged Mr. 
Johnson to pursue milder methods. 

If Congress was dissatisfied with Mr. Lincoln's leniency, 
they raved at Mr. Johnson's mildness. Then began the 
deadlock between the legislative and the executive branches 
of the government which culminated in the unsuccessful im- 
peachment and trial of the president. There was a roaring 
chaos of opinions. No two men in Congress agreed as to 
how the South should be got back into the Union ; whether 
she should be hung, drawn, and quartered first, and then 
brought back in a million coffins ; or brought back first, then 
tied to a post, whipped till the blood flowed in streams, and 
then carried off to execution. All the Radical party agreed 
that the president had nothing to do with it ; that he was not 
in the game even as referee or umpire, certainly not as 
captain. Meantime the South was lying in "misery and 
irons, hard by at death's door." Her brave sons had gone 
to work ; but the negroes were totally demoralized, and little 
18 



274 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

labor could be had to work the crops. Untold thousands 
of freedmen threw down all work, flocked to the towns, 
cities and camps, expecting to be supported if not made rich 
from the Federal treasury. 

V 
The Ftcedman's Bureau 

This state of affairs, Mr. Lincoln had already foreseen 
and tried to provide against. Among the negroes that had 
followed the Federal armies, especially Sherman's army in 
its march through Georgia, there had been great suffering 
and destitution. To keep these runaways from starving, 
Congress, on March 3, 1865, established the Freedman's 
Bureau, but did not make any adequate appropriation; so 
that at first the act did little towards relieving want, but 
a great deal towards making the negroes feel and know that 
they were, in some sense, "the wards of the nation," and 
believe that the Southern people were their worst enemies. 

This act, with amendments and "variations," was in 
force till 1872, and relieved a great deal of suffering among 
the blacks, and among whites that had "stuck" to the Union. 
It also established schools, colleges, and universities for the 
freedman, and spent a good many million dollars in caring 
for the negro. So far so good. The abandoned and de- 
serted lands which this Bureau took charge of to give the 
negroes, was the property of the wretched, impoverished 
people of the South, and much of it was recovered by the 
owners only after great delay and after grievous treatment 
at the hands of some of the officials. 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 275 

Theoretically, this Bureau sounds very noble. As de- 
scribed by General O. O. Howard, the commissioner ap- 
pointed by President Johnson, it reads like an extract from 
the writings of John Howard, Elizabeth Fry, or some other 
great philanthropist. Practically, however, it did not work 
so well. To disburse all these millions and see that hun- 
dreds of thousands were fed daily required a very large 
corps of assistants ; and many of these were very question- 
able characters. All this, however, might have gone on 
without adding to the woes of the South; and we must refer 
briefly to the reasons why the name Freedman's Bureau is 
unsavory in the nostrils of the Southern people. 

One of its clauses made its agents "guardians of freed- 
men, with power to settle their disputes with employers;" 
and thereby hangs a tale ghastlier than any that ghost or 
goblin damned ever hissed into the ear of Hamlet. Under 
this clause, our fathers suffered untold annoyance, indignity, 
and insult. Any shiftless negro girl could threaten her em- 
ployer with arrest by the provost-marshal, and alt through 
the South cases of this kind were of daily occurrence. Our 
people in these years drank the cup of humiliation to its very 
dregs, the "wine of astonishment" to its very bottom. 

VI 

The Schoofmami in Tradition 

At this time, and as part of the machinery of this Bureau, 
appeared "the Yankee schoolmarm," famous in Southern 
tradition. Under the aegis of the provost-marshal and his 



276 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

assistants, who protected her from the imaginary bullets of 
the imaginary assassin and from the real contempt of our 
mothers and grandmothers, 

In her noisy mansion, skilled to rule, 

The village schoolmarm taught her little school. 

Ladies of refinement there may have been among these 
teachers ; but many of them came for what they could make 
by it. We shall describe "the schoolmarm" as the older 
people generally remember her. She came as a philanthro- 
pist, but had her eyes on the loaves and fishes. She told the 
little "darlings" what sacrifices she had made to come South 
to raise them to a level with the "proud aristocrats over yon- 
der ;" and, at the end of the session, took up a collection in 
which forks, spoons, and family heirlooms figured instead of 
silver dollars. She brought a stigma upon the sacred name 
of teacher, and left behind her the flavor of asafcetida. 

The last interview of one of these "marms" with old 
Aunt Susan is interesting : 

"Good-bye, Mrs. Brown; remember now what I say: 
You are as good as any of these white people, and have a' 
perfect right to eat with them and sit in the parlor with 
them. Do you understand?" 

"Yes'm," replied Aunt Susan, alias Mrs. Brown. 

"Now, Mrs. Brown," continued the retiring head of Cross 
Roads College, "I want you dear people to know what 
brought me down here. I used to make dresses and bonnets 
up in my own state, but came South to help elevate your 
precious children to equality with the proud aristocracy of 
the South. Understand?" 



TEE SOUTH SINCE TEE WAR 277 

"Yes'm," said Aunt Susan; "lemme see. Does you say 
I is good as my ole mistis?" 

"Oh, yes, certainly," answered the philanthropist. 
. "An' you sez yo' biz'ness at home wuz to make dresses 
and bonnits ?" 

"Yes," answered the schoolmarm. 

"Well, my white folks never 'sochiates wid dressmakers 
and millners, an' I ain't gwine do it; good mornin', marm." 
(Exit Mrs. Brown, usually known as Aunt Susan.) 

This illustration is taken from an article published by a 
Southern lady in 1885, after the heat of passion had sub- 
sided. It represents exactly the schoolmarm in tradition. 

VII 

Reconstruction Through Destruction 

President Johnson soon showed that he thought the presi- 
dent was "in the saddle." He proposed to carry on the 
policy of "restoration" — what is called in our history presi- 
dential reconstruction; but Congress violently opposed his 
policy. Most of the seceded states accepted the new presi- 
dent's suggestions, called conventions, adopted constitutions, 
repealed their ordinances of secession, accepted the thir- 
teenth amendment abolishing slavery forever, and elected 
representatives and senators to seats in Congress. Here 
came the rub. When these representatives and senators got 
to Washington, they met with a cold reception from the 
Northern members, and found that their names were not on 
the roll of Congress. The clause of the constitution making 



278 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

each branch of Congress the judge of the eligibility of its 
members was used as a pretext to reject these Southern rep- 
resentatives and senators. 

Then began the contest between Congress and the presi- 
dent. February 26, 1866, Congress appointed a committee 
of fifteen, twelve Republicans and three Democrats, to look 
into Southern affairs. On June 18, this committee reported 
against the president's policy, treated the South as still in a 
state of rebellion, and, under the leadership of violent South- 
haters, entered upon a new era of persecution. 

Meantime, the prostrate South was fast in the grip of the 
Freedman's Bureau, the shiftless freedman himself, and the 
schoolmarm, and could not be reinstated in the Union. Her 
great offenses — what led Congress to denounce her as still 
in rebellion — were first, that she had passed laws against 
vagrancy; but this had been done to protect property from 
millions of idlers, mostly of the freedman class; and, second, 
that she was unwilling to receive the slaves as political 
equals, competent to vote and to hold public office. These 
bitter pills she could not swallow in a moment. After a 
while, however, she submitted to the inevitable, and, in order 
to get some kind of government and go to work to rebuild 
her shattered fortunes, accepted the fourteenth and fifteenth 
amendments to the constitution. These two amendments, 
with the thirteenth abolishing slavery, are the constitutional 
results of the War between the States, alias the "Rebellion." 

The thirteenlh amendment confirmed the Emancipation 
Proclamation. No one wishes to see it repealed. 

The fourteenth amendment brought a new being into ex- 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 279 

istence, that is, a citizen of the United States. Before its 
adoption, men were citizens of their respective states, and in- 
cidentally residents of the United States. Its object of 
course was to make citizens of the negroes emancipated by 
the war. 

The fifteenth amendment went farther, and gave votes to 
all negro males over 21 years of age. For thirty years or 
more, these votes were cast almost solidly in the interests of 
one political party, and the Southern people saw that there 
was no probability that the negro vote would ever be divided 
between the parties. This led to the restriction of the 
suffrage in several Southern states. The results are ex- 
cellent. As said elsewhere, a good many whites are dis- 
franchised by the new constitutions of the Southern states. 
The best class of colored men retain their votes, and the mass 
of idle and vicious ones are disfranchised. In these re- 
sults, the North has practically acquiesced, and the Supreme 
Court of the United States has shown no inclination to up- 
set the new constitutions. All this is a happy omen. It is 
one of the most significant signs that "the war is at last 
over." 

March 2, 1867, is the "Black Friday" of the South. On 
that day, Congress passed, over the president's veto, a bill 
dividing the territory of secession, except Tennessee, into 
five military districts, to be commanded by generals of the 
United States army. These military governors were or- 
dered to ignore the state governments and the state officers 
as illegal and as insufficient to protect the freedman in his 
rights under the constitution. Under this act, the mass of 



280 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

intelligent white men in the South were disfranchised, and 
all negro males over twenty-one were given the ballot. The 
results may be imagined. 

VIII 

The Catpetbagrge* and the Scalawag 

In the midst of this hurlyburly of wrack and ruin, and as 
a part of the diabolical machinery, appears that monstrosity, 
that vulture of society, the "carpetbagger." He is the pro- 
duct of putrefaction, the child of carrion and decay. In our 
day, he packs his bag and speeds to the sister isle of Cuba, 
and his odor is even now borne to us on the southern zephyr. 
When the Philippines are "pacified," he will take ship to 
"loot" the treasury of that territory. 

The carpetbagger of 1865 was the lowest of his ilk, the 
basest of his species. Often he was an apostate in religion, 
a preacher driven out of some community for political cor- 
ruption, for immorality, or for robbing his church's treasury. 
He refugeed to the prostrate South to recoup his fortunes 
by plundering bankrupt commonwealths. 

To inflame the negroes against their former masters; to 
speak contemptuously of the "poor white rebel trash;" to 
point the negro to the home of "that broken-down aristo- 
crat" and ask him how he would like to have it; to ogle 
:him and embrace him, calling him "Mister" and "Brother," 
and count upon his vote at the next election, — such was the 
employment of this bird of prey, this cross between the 
cormorant and the buzzard. 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 281 



Forth from this cesspool of corruption, sprang another 
creature forever infamous as the "scalawag." He is a rene- 
gade Southerner, who joined the carpetbagger and the 
negro in dividing offices, plundering citizens, and robbing 
the public treasury. Before the war, he was a blatant "day- 
bef ore-yesterday secessionist." During the war, he prob- 
ably held a bomb-proof position far from the post of danger. 
When Congress quarrelled with the president, he saw the 
opportunity of his life, sneaked slimily out of his hole, and 
with oily tongue ingratiated himself with the august repre- 
sentatives of the conqueror, while gleams of the guberna- 
torial mansion and of senatorial honors flashed before his 
snaky vision. 

The carpetbagger is no new character in history. He 
has lived in all periods and among all nations. He crossed 
the Mediterranean, and checked his carpetbag for Utica and 
Magnesia. He was with the infamous Verres, whom 
Cicero denounced for plundering Sicily. He crossed the 
Channel with William the Norman, and battened on the 
decaying carcass of Anglo-Saxon civilization. History re- 
peats itself. 

Scalawags, also, were produced in earlier ages ; but ours 
seem fouler. Sicily, Africa, and Asia Minor had them in 
abundance ; but those were pagan days, and men were sunk 
in superstition and brutality. England under the Con- 
queror had them in plenty ; but that was before the days of 
nice honor and chivalric ideals. The scalawag of 1865, we 
repeat, was "the basest of his species." 



282 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

IX 

The Th.it 6 Triumvirate 

When Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey divided the Roman 
world among them, they were indulging "that vaulting am- 
bition which o'erleaps itself," but were themselves the worst 
sufferers. When Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus drew up 
their deadly proscription, they were but following the prec- 
edents of a pagan age; but their deeds, though bloody and 
heinous, did not undermine the civilization of the Roman 
world. Not so with the third triumvirate, composed of the 
carpetbagger, the scalawag, and the negro. They rode 
roughshod over private rights, piled up huge debts for pos- 
terity, plundered the public treasury, and made heinous plots 
against the hearth and home of the Southern family. 

We must say, however, that the poor ignorant freedman 
was but a pliant tool in the hands of unprincipled men of the 
other two classes. Rascality and robbery ran riot. Enor- 
mous debts were piled up against the states ; the bonds were 
sold cheap to adventurers from every section; and colossal 
fortunes were made by depraved and corrupt men like Le- 
gree, famous in ante-bellum fiction. The debt of Alabama 
increased from about six million to about thirty-eight mil- 
lion; that of Florida from two hundred and twenty-one 
thousand to nearly sixteen million; that of South Carolina 
from five million to thirty-nine million; and the debts of 
other states in about the same proportion. The debts of 
the eleven seceding states were increased from eighty-sever 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 283 

million to three hundred and eighty million.* A former 
congressman from Maine says that the military government 
of South Carolina in 1867 was "a carnival of crime and 
corruption," "a morass of rottenness," "a huge system of 
brigandage." Justice L. Q. C. Lamar says that the recon- 
struction policy of Congress was intended to reverse every 
natural, social, and political relation on which the civiliza- 
tion not only of the South, but of the whole Union rested. 

The black man was stirred up against the white man by 
incendiary speeches in public and by the basest suggestions 
in private. To get the "proud aristocrat's" house and home 
was held up as immediately possible ; to get his daughter in 
marriage was to follow. Compared with the last sugges- 
tion, all others sank into insignificance. To stand by dis- 
franchised and see great masses of ignorant and insolent 
men of an inferior race casting their votes against one's 
property, and laying up boundless debts and burdens for 
posterity — this was bad, yet for a time endurable; but the 
attack upon the home, upon the racial integrity of the Anglo- 
Saxon — this would make every Southern father draw the 
sword of Virginius, and smile with joy that he yet lived to 
thrust it into the vitals of his daughter. 

Behind all this reign of atrocity, stood the Radical ma- 
jority in Congress. In this era of better feeling, it is al- 
most incredible that men of Anglo-Saxon blood could have 
given countenance to plans of reconstruction that could lead 
to such results. In their fury, they impeached President 
Johnson because his plan seemed too lenient; possibly they 



♦Dr. J. L. M. Curry's figures. 



284 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

would have impeached even Abraham Lincoln, had he lived 
to urge his temperate and humane policy. 

A quotation from the records of that period will interest 
the student. Let us see what Mr. D. H. Chamberlain, of 
Massachusetts, attorney-general of South Carolina from 
1868 to 1872, writes of the situation. First, as to the "un- 
wise and unfortunate" conduct of the white men of that 
noble old commonwealth, sprung from the best blood of the 
French Huguenot and of the Anglo-Saxon. Says Mr. 
Chamberlain: "One race (that is, the whites) stood aloft 
and haughtily refused to seek the confidence of the race 
which was just entering on its new powers." Shades of 
Alfred and of Washington ! Men of the great Anglo-Saxon 
race expected to "seek the confidence," to acknowledge the 
leadership, of a race known to history only as "hewers of 
wood and drawers of water" through all the ages ! 

So much for Mr. Chamberlain's knowledge of history. 
Now for his opinion of the carpetbagger and the scalawag. 
"Three years have passed," says he, "and the result is — 
what? Incompetency, dishonesty, corruption in all its 
forms, have 'advanced their miscreated fronts,' have put 
to flight the small remnant that opposed them, and now 
rules the party that rules the State." Mr. Chamberlain's 
candor and truthfulness compel our admiration, in spite of 
his monstrous twaddle about the Anglo-Saxons of Carolina. 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 285 

X 

The K« Klux Klan 

This state of affairs could not last ; moderate wickedness 
might have lasted longer. Respectable Northern men living 
in the South' revolted against it, and began to think about 
their Anglo-Saxon civilization. As a result, there sprang up 
the Ku Klux Klan,* a secret order instituted by the whites 
in self-preservation, but later on used for unworthy pur- 
poses. Great throngs of men clothed in white sheets rode 
single file on horseback through negro sections of the coun- 
try; their horses drank water by the barrel, and the riders, 
by the bucketful; skulls and crossbones were drawn on the 
doors and walls, and on all the voting places: the appeal to 
superstition won the victory; the great reign of terror was 
over. 

It was anarchy; but self-preservation is the first law of 
nature. Let him that is without sin among us throw the 
first stone, we say reverently. The nation that holds the 
continent bought from the Indian with beads and bracelets, 
or taken from him at the point of the bayonet, the nation 
that gave Spain twenty million dollars for a principality, can 
ill afford — whether North or South — to blame the Anglo- 
Saxon for using ghosts and goblins to save his property 
and maintain his civilization. 

This fearful period may be said to have lasted from 1865 
to 1876. During these years, many of the young men went 
to new states to seek their fortunes; capital shrank from 
the South as men shrink from a leper; two-thirds of 

•In Thomas Dixon's play, The Clansman, Gen. N. B. Forrest it represented as being 
the grand commander of the Ku Klux Klan. 



286 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

the wealth of the South had been swept away; money, if any 
one would lend it, was held at the fabulous rate of 75 per 
cent or 80 per cent ; colossal ruin reigned supreme. 

Even President Grant, so kindly in some ways, had kept 
soldiers in the South to terrorize elections. Hayes re- 
lieved the South of this incubus. From his accession to the 
presidency, the new era of reconstruction set in — recon- 
struction by the Southern people, the only kind that could 
be sound or permanent. 

Of the "black-and-tan" conventions that drafted the new 
constitutions, we have already briefly spoken. Virginia's 
great ( !) convention was probably more decent, or less bar- 
barous, than some others ; that worthy body drafted the con- 
stitution under which Virginia lived till July 10, 1902. A 
handful of Virginia gentlemen of brains and character were 
powerless against the enormous black-and-tan majority in 
the "famous" Underwood convention. An anecdote of two 
of the statesmen will lighten up our ghastly narrative. The 
question of issuing certain stock and bonds was being dis- 
cussed by the carpetbaggers and the scalawags, when one 
ebony statesman turned to another and said, "What is dis 
yere storck de is talkin' about so much? Whar's de gwine 
ter put all dat storck?" "Oh, shur! Jim, ain't you done lis- 
ten to de 'schusion? De storck is gwine ter be kep in de 
barns." Both solons were ready to vote; carpetbagger and 
scalawag were ready to divide the office and the plunder. 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 287 

XI 

Reconstruction by the Southern People 

The real restoration of the South may be said to have 
begun about 1880. In that year, she had about 17^ per cent 
of the assessed property of the whole country, against 44 
per cent in i860. By 1890, she had added $3,800,000,000 
to her assessed values, a gain of more than 50 per cent 
in ten years. In farm products, she gained 16 per cent in 
the same period. In 1896, she made one-third of the corn 
crop of the country; she now makes more than half the 
total wheat crop. In the period 1880- 189 5, she increased 
her cotton crop from five million to almost ten million 
bales. In 1894, she manufactured 718,515 bales; in 1903, 
2,000,729 bales. In 1903, her cotton crop was nearly eleven 
million bales; in 1904, more than ten million; in 1905, 
nearly fourteen million; and in 1906, it was more than 
eleven million bales. 

In the ante-bellum period, the South grew rich on grains, 
sugar, rice, indigo, and tobacco. Now she has all these 
sources of wealth, and many others. Since 1863, the wheat 
shipments of New Orleans have increased from 2,744,581 
bushels to 15,643,745 bushels a year, and the corn shipments 
from less than 1,000,000 bushels to 12,832,139 bushels. 
The shipments from Galveston have increased in the same 
proportion. In 1902, the shipments from these two ports 
together almost equalled those from New York. Cotton 
mills are springing up in all directions. New England mills, 
also, are moving south, so as to save freights, and thus be 
able to compete better with Southern mills. In 1902, for 



288 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

the first time, the number of bales and pounds used by 
Southern mills exceeded those of the North and East. 

Before the war, the seed of the cotton was fed to the hogs. 
To-day, it is used for fertilizing after a valuable oil has been 
extracted. The income from this new source of wealth in- 
creased almost ten-fold in fifteen years. 

The South is developing vast mines of coal and of iron. 
In fifteen years, the output of coal from her mines increased 
fivefold. She is "sending iron to Pennsylvania and coal to 
Newcastle," says a distinguished educator.* By putting 
iron ore, coke, coal, and limestone close together, nature 
enables the South to undersell the world in manufactured 
iron. 

The railroads of the South are developing rapidly. Since 
1894, the Southern Railway has increased in mileage from 
4,159 to 7,550; the Louisville and Nashville, from 2,673 t0 
4,279; the Norfolk and Western, from 1,327 to 1,861. In 
the same period, the united earnings of these three systems 
have more than doubled. 

Cotton will yet be "king." By building mills near the 
cotton fields, the South can soon dictate the price of cotton 
to the world. The proposed canal across Central America, 
by bringing the Southern states much closer to China, will 
greatly promote the cotton interests of the South, and in 
various ways add to the wealth of the whole nation. 

In farm produce, in garden products, in foreign com- 
merce, in banking, and in many other sources of wealth, the 
South is making substantial progress in building up her 



♦Chancellor J. H. Kirkland, of Vanderbilt University. 




N. B. FORREST 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 289 

waste places and restoring her shattered fortunes. She is 
no longer dependent upon negro labor, though she prefers 
the negro for her rice, her sugar, and her cotton lields. Her 
farmers are rapidly learning to diversify their crops so as 
to be less injured by the decline in this or that market. The 
brains and the energy formerly devoted to politics will soon 
make the South wealthy, and make her educational institu- 
tions equal to those of any other section in training intelli- 
gent citizens. 

In educational matters, also, the South has made most 
substantial progress. A Northern expert says that the 
South is spending as much on public education as Great 
Britain, though the population is little more than half. The 
magnanimity of the Southern people in giving negro child- 
ren the same advantages as their own, in spite of the fact 
that the whites pay over 90 per cent of the taxes, is one of 
the greatest proofs of the true nobility of our people. The 
South has forgiven the poor hoodwinked freedman, but de- 
spises the white men that used him as a cat's-paw. 

The colleges and the state universities of the South are 
doing a great work in training the youth of both sexes, 
proving that our people believe in an intelligent citizenship. 
It is said that no Southern college was extinguished by the 
war, but that the people, by private and by state funds, have 
revived all that were closed or seriously crippled by war and 
its results. In the twenty years from 1875 to 1895, school 
attendance increased 130 per cent, while population in- 
creased only 54 per cent ; the value of school property more 
than trebled; the attendance upon the colleges and univer- 
sities increased in fifteen years 150 per cent. 
19 



290 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

To the buoyancy and the hopefulness of our people, we 
have referred in foregoing pages. The power of recuper- 
ation, with peoples as with individuals, is one of the sweet- 
est gifts of Heaven; and this gift in large measure has been 
bestowed upon our people. The French people, also, have 
wonderful recuperative power, but the South has eclipsed 
that nation. After the Franco-Prussian War ( 1 870-1 87 1 ) , 
France lay apparently prostrate and helpless at the feet of 
the new German Confederation. It seemed as if all were 
lost including honor ; and a superficial observer might have 
thought that France might never resume her place among 
the "great powers of Europe." Such gloomy fears were 
soon dissipated. In a short time, France paid a war in- 
demnity of over a billion dollars, and, in spite of the loss of 
valuable territory ceded to the conqueror, soon resumed her 
place among the great nations of Europe. Even greater 
power of recuperation has been shown by our noble people. 
Though one-third of her able-bodied men had died from 
the effects of war; though she had lost two-thirds of her 
assessed property by the forcible confiscation of her slaves, 
by plunder, and by the legitimate results of failure ; though 
the era of reconstruction had paralyzed her energies and 
made life a mere existence — yet, since her people regained 
control of their local governments, the South has rallied be- 
yond expression, and now her pulses throb with the fullness 
of the spring and with the buoyancy of a new vitality. 

The war was worth all it cost. It has made labor more 
universal. Before the war, a good many young men lived 
on their fathers and helped languidly to manage the planta- 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 291 

tion. Now every young man is expected to adopt a trade, 
a business, or a profession, and the first question asked of 
a young man of twenty-five is, "What is your business or 
profession?" Gentlemen of easy leisure are little respected. 
Labor is more honored than ever before. 

Being cut off from political honors and preferment, the 
brains of the South have been devoted to other matters. 
Politics used to be the bane of her civilization; to every 
statesman, she had a thousand small politicians. Now our 
people are as a rule too busy to go into politics, and it is 
very hard to induce good business men, or men of standing 
in the professions, to take public office. Consequently, we 
are producing great leaders of industry, great financiers, 
fine lawyers, noble educators, and excellent scholars. States- 
men we can hardly hope to produce while occupying our 
isolated position, politically, in the Union. A Clay or a 
Calhoun from the South could not muster a majority in the 
Senate. 

XII 

The Race Problem 

The "negro question" is one of the great problems now 
awaiting solution. Not whether the negro shall sit at the 
white man's table, smoke in his library, and marry his 
daughter — that question is never discussed south of the 
Potomac ; but whether he shall take part in the government 
of the Southern people, and hold public office and other po- 
sitions of honor and responsibility. This race question is 



292 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

one that vitally concerns the individual states, and must be 
left to them for solution. If many negroes are disfran- 
chised by the new constitutions of North Carolina, Virginia, 
Louisiana, Alabama, and other Southern states, it is because 
they cannot meet the requirements as to intelligence and as 
to amount of property laid down by those constitutions. 
That no man can be deprived of his vote on account of race, 
color, or previous condition of servitude is known to every- 
one who has ever heard of the war amendments to the con- 
stitution of the United States, or who ever reads a news- 
paper. A good many whites lose their votes under the new 
constitutions of the South, but vastly more negroes are dis- 
franchised. It is needless to say that the South believes 
that this is a white man's country; and it would seem that 
the North is rapidly coming to the same opinion. 

This race question has been a bone of contention ever 
since the formation of our government. In 1787, it came 
near defeating the plan for a "more perfect union ;" and the 
so-called "Federal ratio," whereby five slaves were counted 
as three citizens in fixing the number of representatives in 
Congress, was resorted to as a compromise. Then came the 
long wrangle as to "free states" and "slave states;" the 
Missouri compromise of 1820; the angry debates in Con- 
gress; the rise of the Abolition party; the publication of 
Uncle Tom's Cabin; John Brown's raid, and, to cap the 
climax, the great war outlined in foregoing chapters. Worse 
than all that, came the era of reconstruction, when a merci- 
less Radical majority in Congress attempted to put the 
freedman in control of millions of what an English his- 
torian has called the flower of the Anglo-Saxon race. This 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 293 

problem long refused to admit of solution. White men in 
the South used this negro vote to elevate themselves into pub- 
lic office, until the South was driven to the conclusion that 
the negro must get out of politics and let the white man 
govern both races unassisted. This is the true solution. 
Since retiring largely from the field of statesmanship, the 
negro is less objectionable to his Anglo-Saxon neighbor; 
and, if the United States government and its courts will let 
the South alone and not interfere in her suffrage questions, 
we shall have peace, happiness, and fraternal union. 

As said before, the negro question has long been the 
apple of discord between the sections of our country. How 
preposterous it seems for brethren of the great Anglo-Saxon 
race to quarrel over a race so manifestly inferior, and so 
clearly intended by providence to occupy a position of in- 
feriority ! It simply proves the perversity and the stupidity 
of human nature. 

As said in an earlier chapter, many of the ablest men of 
the ante-bellum period were in favor of colonizing the ne- 
groes in Africa. Some of the thoughtful men of our day 
are in favor of deportation. At present, however, the cotton 
states are opposed to the separation of the races. They be- 
lieve that the labor of the negro is indispensable on the rice 
and cotton plantations; but the time may come soon when 
this idea will vanish before statistics. 

Rudimentary education the Southern people intend to 
give the negro if he stays out of politics; but, if his so- 
called friends in other sections should upset the suffrage 
laws now prevailing in the South, the next step would 



294 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

probably be to let the colored children have no schools ex- 
cept those that could be maintained by the taxes of the col- 
ored people alone. This would give them one school where 
they now have ten. At present, comparatively few Southern 
whites favor a division of the school tax on the basis of 
color; if, however, the United States courts should inter- 
fere with suffrage laws in the South, there would be a tidal 
wave of indignation that would submerge the colored 
schools sustained by the whites, and produce other results 
too painful to predict. 

Bad advice and pernicious leadership have injured the 
colored man beyond expression. Alienated from his white 
neighbors, first by scalawags and carpetbaggers, more re- 
cently by artful politicians, he has left the white man's 
church, protested against white teachers, and lost the train- 
ing that contact with a higher civilization used to give him. 
The difference between the old colored people and the 
younger is very noticeable, and to this deterioration is due 
the present state of feeling between the races. The only 
solution of the problem, if the colored man is to remain in 
the South, is for him to get out of the white man's way, 
politically and otherwise : competition will inevitably destroy 
him. His only place in the South is that of a servant with- 
out servitude. 

At school and at church, also, he is often wofully misled, 
even totally ruined. Many of his teachers set him against 
his white neighbors. Instead of reminding him that the 
schoolhouse was built with the white man's money and the 
teacher's salary paid out of the white man's treasury, the 
teacher too often plants the seeds of race bitterness in the 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 295 

black child's bosom. At home, too, a great many parents 
are doing the same thing, thus sowing the wind to reap the 
whirlwind in the future. We are glad to say, however, 
that there are some wiser teachers and some wiser colored 
parents. A most respectable colored teacher in Virginia, 
on being asked quite recently why his pupils were so of- 
fensive to white citizens on the streets, replied, "I try to 
teach them right at school, but they are taught wrong at 
home." 

At church, also, they get some pernicious instruction, 
though we rejoice to say that there are a number of faithful 
colored ministers trying to lift their people to a higher 
moral level. To illustrate our statement as to pernicious 
instruction, we cite an incident related to us by a Virginia 
gentleman of high Christian character. His family had 
but one servant, a colored woman, whom they trusted as a 
member of the family and for whom they all felt a deep 
affection. Handkerchiefs, pieces of jewelry, and other 
things disappeared mysteriously; but at first no one sus- 
pected the servant. Finally, the losses became so heavy 
that they were compelled to suspect her, as she was the only 
person that had access to the trunks and bureaus. One day 
they searched her trunk, and in it found the missing articles. 
They called her up, told her how they had felt towards her 
and how they had trusted her, and asked her why she had 
betrayed their confidence. She replied : "Well, my preacher 
tells us that the Lord told the Jews, when they went out of 
Egypt to plunder the Egyptians, to get even with them for 
keeping them in bondage ; and he says that we have a right 



296 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

to get all we can out of the white people for having kept us 
in slavery." 

Shakespeare makes one of his characters say that the 
devil can cite scripture for his purpose. So with this negro 
preacher. He might be pardoned for not understanding the 
command given by Moses to the Jews in verse 22 of the 3rd 
chapter of Exodus ; but the application of it to the colored 
race is a clear perversion of scripture. How shall the blind 
lead the blind? 

A strong feeling for employing white teachers for negro 
children is developing in parts of the South. There are 
many ladies in the Southern states who would take charge 
of schools for colored children, and thus guarantee them 
several hours a day of good moral teaching and moral in- 
fluence. 

What the negro needs is kind but firm restraint such as he 
had in slavery. He is the child-race of the world. In- 
stead of letting him live in idleness, or work only one day 
in six, as numbers of them do, many are in favor of putting 
him under tutelage, and compelling him to earn honest 
wages. If his hands and his brain were employed, his evil 
propensities would be to a large degree curbed, and thus 
the most potent cause of bad feeling between the races 
would be removed, partially if not entirely. 

He needs, also, good leaders of his own race. Most of 
his representative men, when they meet, pass resolutions 
against lynching, but rarely condemn the monstrous crimes 
that drive the white man to such frenzy. 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 297 

XIII 

Morals and Religion 

In morals and religion, the Southern people are still quite 
sound at bottom. Divorce, though more common than be- 
fore the war, still puts one on the defensive, if not under a 
social stigma. 

Immorality is condemned; drunkards are despised; the 
temperance movement is sweeping large parts of the coun- 
try, the elimination of the vicious vote giving the temper- 
ance cause a wonderful impetus, even in such conservative 
states as Virginia. The negro vote always went in the 
main on the side of liquor ; and in temperance elections the 
colored preacher could not control his members. 

To decline a drink used to cause duels. Now, duelling is 
put among the antiquities, and liquor is rarely offered in 
private houses. 

In religious matters, the Southern people are still very 
conservative. New fads and isms find little favor among 
them. To go to church at least once on Sunday is expected 
of every good citizen, and a public violation of the Sabbath 
injures a man's standing in most communities. The two 
races no longer worship together. The colored race de- 
mand their own churches, and preachers of their own color. 
Many of the preachers were used by the white politicians, 
and lost caste with their white neighbors ; but some of them 
have been very useful in maintaining law and order. 

The people of the so-called "New South" still honor re- 
ligion, respect the Sabbath, and despise cant and hypocrisy. 



298 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Social swearing, if we may coin the phrase, is no longer 
"good form" in the South. An oath uttered audibly in the 
Westmoreland Club of Richmond would cause amazement; 
swearing is relegated to the barroom and other haunts of 
the sons of Belial. Gentlemen of standing rarely swear in 
public; but most youths have a touch of the habit just after 
measles and roseola. 

Lynching is just now bringing censure upon some South- 
ern communities ; but it is an erroneous idea that it is con- 
fined to the South or that negroes are the only victims. It 
is true, however, that about three-fourths of the lynchings 
occur in the South, and that over half of the victims are ne- 
groes. It is equally true that the principal cause of lynching 
is the freedman's crime; and it may be added that, as 
long as this cause continues, lynching will be resorted to. 
Southern men will not allow certain facts to be dragged 
through the courts, while police-court lawyers delight po- 
lice-court rabbles with their indecent questions. We regret 
to say, moreover, that the colored people as a rule do not 
condemn the crimes leading to lynching half as vigorously 
as they do the lynching. The colored man does not seem 
to have the least conception of the awful sanctity of the 
white man's home: the chasm at this point is as wide as 
eternity. 

As some of the brutal element of the negro race move 
north and west, these sections are resorting to lynch law 
almost daily. The people there are beginning to sympathize 
with the South considerably. Foreigners, however, do not 
understand the awful situation. Says an Englishman living 



THE 80VTE SINCE THE WAR 299 

in Mississippi : "It is perfectly useless to try to explain to a 

foreigner the true inwardness of lynch law 

I do not uphold them in wrong-doing, and yet I tell my 
English kinsmen and friends that, if they were surrounded 
by the same conditions, they would undoubtedly act just as 
the Southerners do. Human nature, especially Anglo- 
Saxon nature, is the same in all lands." 

In the matter of honor, we still have much to be proud of. 
We cannot claim, however, that we are as strictly scrupulous 
as the generations before us. Civil wars always affect the 
honor and the morals of a people, and we cannot claim total 
exemption from this law of nature. While our election 
officers have, in many cases, used very questionable methods 
to maintain the political supremacy of the white race, our 
people as a mass regret tha< such methods were considered 
necessary, and are recasting their constitutions so as to 
eliminate the vicious and purchasable vote by fair and hon- 
orable means. Upon the youth of our day devolves the 
responsibility of carrying out hereafter the election laws 
created under these new state constitutions. The tempta- 
tion to corrupt methods will exist no longer. Cheating in 
elections will train our people to cheat in other matters. 
The habit of dishonesty and prevarication grows into a 
second nature. 

Though making the concessions in the last paragraph, we 
can still say that we have not been "sinners above all the 
Galileans." 

The young men of the South are still sound in the es- 
sentials of honor. The college honor spoken of in our 



300 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

second chapter is still maintained to a degree that augurs 
well for the future. While cheating on examinations is 
more frequent than "before the war/' it is generally con- 
demned by the public sentiment of the students, and the 
student body > will often secure the necessary evidence and 
present the culprit before the faculty for trial. Northern 
colleges and universities have been trying recently to intro- 
duce the honor system : prominent students sometimes write 
south to inquire as to its details, and its methods of opera- 
tion. 

Municipal corruption figures a good deal in our daily 
papers. Councilmen are bought up; some are convicted of 
bribery, and others go unpunished. In this matter, also, we 
are not "sinners above all the Galileans." Some of the 
pious and self-righteous cities of the other sections are 
worse than those of the old "slave-driver" and "lashing 
planter." Two wrongs, however, do not make a right* We 
must make our town councils and our legislatures, like 
Caesar's wife, above reproach. It devolves upon us to elect 
men of character to these positions. If such men say that 
they are too busy to accept office, our boys must determine, 
first to be men of character, and then to make some personal 
sacrifice in order to serve the city and the commonwealth. 
We still have much to be thankful for. In these cases of 
municipal corruption, the men under suspicion rarely repre- 
sent the real civilization of our communities. They are 
generally men of little previous standing, itching for public 
office, and using it, when gained, for their own personal ends 
and objects. 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 301 

Our educated men are generally men of honor. The 
teachers and the scholars of the South are as a rule highly 
respected as representing the best type of the citizen and of 
the gentleman. Few of them can be bought at any figure. 
A few Southern states have been accused of rottenness and 
corruption in the matter of "book adoptions;" but the men 
suspected of selling their votes are generally not educators 
and scholars, but men of the type described in the foregoing 
paragraph pushing their way into school boards and state 
boards of education. We must mark these men, and by our 
votes bury them in the obscurity from which they sprang. 

XIV 

Zaeeheus* is Coming Down 

Love for the Union is increasing in the South. Though 
she is practically ignored in the national government, and 
though many objectionable men represent the Federal gov- 
ernment in Southern communities, the South is proud of the 
Union, would fight for it against any foreign nation, and 
welcomes overtures from friendly Northerners like Mr. 
Charles Francis Adams and others that are leading the way 
to full reconciliation. The young men love the Union more 
than the older ; but state loyalty is still very strong among 
all classes. If compelled to choose between the State and 
the Union, the men of the South would undoubtedly "go 
with the state ;" but the possibility of a rupture is never dis- 
cussed with any seriousness. The right of secession, 

♦See page 122. 



302 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

"though not by gunpowder determinable," is not regarded 
as a live question, but rather as what editors call "dead 
matter." It would take a number of wild-cat presidents 
and pestiferous politicians to resurrect the doctrine of se- 
cession as a burning question. 

A Southern youth, if asked which he loves most, the state 
or the Union, would probably say, "I love not Caesar less 
but Rome more," Caesar being the Union, and Rome his na- 
tive state. Possibly we should say he loves the Union well, 
and his state better. 

President Cleveland's official recognition of Southern men 
did no little to cement the sections. In his cabinet, sat 
several Southern men of high standing; and, during the 
great naval review in 1893, when the fleets of the world 
met our navy in Hampton Roads, a Confederate veteran, 
who was secretary of war, was welcomed to the harbor by 
the screaming of hundreds of whistles, American and 
foreign. 

President McKinley was respected, if not loved, by the 
Southern people. His tragic death was greatly deplored by 
our people, and public sentiment in the South demanded the 
execution of the assassin. 

In the war with Spain in 1898, the South showed great 
loyalty to the Union. The greatest diplomat of that era 
was Fitzhugh Lee, consul-general to Havana. This noble 
son of Virginia was selected for this position when the re- 
lations between Spain and the United States were becoming 
"strained" on account of our sympathy with Cuba. General 
Lee was a brilliant success, and helped to distinguish Mr. 



THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR 303 



McKinley's administration. The president, it is thought, 
permitted small politicians to "sidetrack" this eminent 
Southerner and Democrat in the slashes of Florida, instead 
of sending him as the liberator of Cuba. 

In the war with Spain, Worth Bagley, of North Carolina, 
was the first man killed in battle. The heroic deed of Hob- 
son, of Alabama, in attempting to block up the harbor of 
Santiago ; the bravery of "Little Joe Wheeler" in the same 
campaign ; the gallantry of Schley, the noble son of Mary- 
land — all helped to unite the different sections of our 
country. 

If we may judge by the signs of the times, the day of true 
union and full reconciliation is fast approaching. Mr. 
Charles Francis Adams's Charleston address, in which he 
said that both sides were right in 1861 ; Mr. Cleveland's 
Madison Square Garden speech, in which he praised the 
magnanimity of the South towards the negro, and urged the 
North to leave the solution of the negro problem to the 
Southern people; the endorsement of that speech by the 
Philadelphia Press, long the exponent of the warmest anti- 
Southern sentiment; the addresses made in Richmond, Va., 
in April, 1903, by Mr. St. Clair McKelway, editor of the 
Brooklyn Eagle, and by Dr. Lyman Abbott, in which they 
spoke tenderly of Southern heroes and sympathetically on 
Southern questions — these and other significant events have 
made the heart of the South beat faster, and prepared the 
way for a union not "pinned together by bayonets," but 
"resting upon the consent of the governed." 

Mutual forgiveness and reparation! This, as already 



304 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

said, is the open sesame to fraternal union and to the full 
measure of our national greatness. If such Northern men 
as those named above could write our histories, compile our 
encyclopedias, and edit all our great journals, this book 
might not be needed, or certainly many of its paragraphs 
might be dispensed with. Alas! however, ink-pots of 
Liliput and pygmy politicians have so shaped public senti- 
ment, so filled our bookshelves with pestilential libels, that, 
unless Southern men write the truth, the South will be 
handed down to infamy. Books are still pouring from the 
press, encyclopedias still being printed, that demand refu- 
tation from Southern writers. 

We are not waving the "bloody shirt," but telling the 
truth, "naught extenuating and naught setting down in 
malice." Truth is the great healer. Truth crushed to earth 
will rise again. To tell the truth to the people of the 
South, and to all elsewhere that care to know it, — such is the 
object of this volume, and we invoke upon it the blessing of 
high Heaven, that it may increase the self-respect of our be- 
loved South, disabuse some fair minds in other sections of 
false ideas as to her history, her customs, her institutions, 
and her motives, past and present, and hasten the day when 
"Ephraim shall not envy Judah and Judah shall not vex 
Ephraim." 



CONCLUSION 305 



CHAPTER X 
CONCLUSION 

I 
Recapitulation 

WE have finished our talks. Before parting, let us 
take time for a few words of review, of recapitu- 
lation, and a few words by way of warning to the 
young reader of these pages. 

We have tried to show the Southern youth how much he 
has to love and to be proud of, and how much there is to 
inspire him. In our earlier talks, we dwelt upon some of 
the poetic features of our country, and tried to appeal to the 
sentiment for the venerable, the lofty, in our history. We 
stood together at Roanoke Island, Saint Augustine, and 
Jamestown, and gave ourselves up to the thoughts too deep 
for utterance that surge in upon our souls as we stand at 
such sacred places. Then we took up the heroic phases of 
the colonial era. We saw how our Southern fathers rose 
up against the tyranny of Harvey and of Berkeley, and left 
us as a legacy eternal hatred of tyranny and of tyrants. 

Coming to the last half of the 18th century, we saw the 

men of the South cooperating with those of Massachusetts 

in opposing the tyranny of George III and his ministers. 

Along with Otis of Massachusetts, we named Henry, the 

20 



306 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Virginian, whom both tradition and history have made pre- 
eminent. In the war that the colonies waged for independ- 
ence, the South, we saw, played a noble part. We passed 
rapidly in review the career of some of her greatest soldiers, 
spoke briefly of some of the critical battles of the Revolu- 
tion, and saw clearly that the South played a noble and 
heroic part in achieving American independence. 

Then came the era of constitutions. The South's part in 
drafting the Federal constitution of 1787, we found to be 
very great; and we saw later on that the violation of this 
great compact or agreement by many Northern and West- 
ern states led eleven Southern states to secede from the 
Union in 1861. 

Between the formation of the Union (1789) and its dis- 
solution (1861), came, it will be remembered, the War of 
1 81 2 and the Mexican War (1846). That our states did 
nobly in these wars, we showed very clearly. We then re- 
viewed the cause of ill-feeling between the sections. We 
showed that the South bore patiently for many years the 
attacks made by fanatics upon her people and her institu- 
tions, bore slurs and abuse from many quarters, bore the 
nullification on the part of many Northern and Western 
states of clauses of the constitution and of acts of Congress 
in which she was deeply interested. We saw that, when, in 
i860, a great party avowedly hostile to her and her inter- 
ests got possession of the government, seven Southern states 
seceded, and that four others, because they did not believe 
in coercion, joined the secession movement. 

That the doctrine of secession was not confined to the 



CONCLUSION 307 



South but was also a New England doctrine, we proved con- 
clusively; and that nullification, also, was a New England 
doctrine, we showed very clearly. 

We then gave a rapid sketch of the great war for South- 
ern independence. We discussed the rearing, the motives, 
the courage, and the self-sacrificing heroism of the soldiers 
and the sailors of the Confederacy; gave a rapid outline of 
the campaigns of Lee, Jackson, and Albert Sidney Johnston, 
and of the sufferings of the noble women of the South, the 
wives and the mothers of heroes. 

We wrote as a Southern man for Southern youth. 
While glorifying the South, we did not heap maledictions 
and denunciations upon every one in the North, but upon 
those alone that came under the head of fanatics, vilifiers, 
marauders, plunderers, and heroes of "triumphal" marches 
over women, children, and graves. Any one that takes of- 
fense must either belong to one of these classes or condone 
the crimes referred to. "If any, speak, for him have I of- 
fended." Hatred towards any section, we have not en- 
couraged. Love for the South, admiration for her heroes, 
belief in her sincerity, and in the eternal justice of her cause 
— all this we have taught to the best of our ability and with 
all the earnestness of conviction. "If this be treason, make 
the most of it." 



II 
Patriotism 



What we all, old and young, need, is real patriotism. 
We need a larger vision of our relation to our country. 



308 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

Local patriotism killed ancient Greece, and, if encouraged, 
may kill modern America. 

In ancient Greece, men used to say, " I am an Athenian," 
"I am a Spartan," "I am a Theban;" and the system of city- 
states indicated by these phrases led Greece to disintegration, 
decay, and ruin. 

General Henry Lee in 1798 needed a larger vision when 
he cried in the Virginia legislature, "Virginia is my coun- 
try." John Randolph, of Roanoke, needed it. We in the 
twentieth century need it also. Let us lift up our eyes unto 
the hills and catch the inspiration. 

Patriotism means love of country, love of one's native 
land. Some men spell country without r; but even West- 
moreland county is no man's country. If we love only 
Texas, Georgia, or Virginia, we cannot say that we are 
patriotic. We must love our country as a whole. We 
must love the flag that has braved a hundred years the bat- 
tle and the breeze. If we have not this love, we are orphans 
in the universe, we are cut off from one of the deepest 
sources of joy. A man without patriotism is a man without 
a country, and a man without a country is more to be pitied 
than the man without a shadow — the famous but wretched 
being of German literature. 

A great German author depicts in vivid language the suf- 
ferings of the man without a shadow ; how he was pursued 
by the sidelong glances of every passer-by and by the curious 
stare of vulgar mobs, and so driven to desperation. Worse 
than this is the suffering of the man without a country. 
Better migrate to the bleak hills of Labrador and, sitting on 
the shivering edges of a glacier, cry, "My country 'tis of 



CONCLUSION 309 



thee I sing," than live in a land of perpetual sunshine and 
of golden harvests, with lips that cannot sing that thrilling 
anthem. 

Already I hear your comments, "gentle" reader. The 
Northern sympathizer is saying, "Good; he's advising the 
youth of the South to forget the war and love the Union." 
The overzealous Southerner is saying, "Bah ! he's gone over 
to the enemy, and is catering to the majority." 

Both are wrong, especially the Southerner. His sneer 
is as false as Lucifer's when he told the Almighty that Job 
knew which side his bread was buttered on, and that he 
served God for the loaves and fishes. Wrong, too, was the 
Northerner, when he thought that this writer was urging 
the Southern youth to "forget the war." When I forget the 
war, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, and let 
my right hand forget its cunning. 

What, then? Both are wrong, I repeat. I am just where 
I started : we need a larger vision of patriotism. 

Virginia is not your country. Carolina is not your coun- 
try. Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, though all call up sweet 
and solemn memories, are not your country. You need 
what the Romans call patria and the Germans fatherland 
— and would that we had the word, and the same lofty sen- 
timent that thrills the bosom of the German as he sings, 
What is the German's Fatherland ? 

A man may say that the old Abolition party destroyed his 
love for this country. That party is out of date, but the 
fatherland still lives. Another may say that he does not 
love the flag because so many South-haters have sung of 



310 HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 

that flag in verse or have glorified it in their orations. Rise 
to a larger vision. Do you hate the Bible because many- 
blatant and pernicious sects have quoted it as authority for 
their perverted teachings? 

We can denounce the abolitionists, but love our country. 
We can denounce the slurs of pestiferous poets, pulpiteers, 
and orators, but still love the flag which our fathers helped 
to make respected and feared on land and ocean. It is our 
country, our flag. Shall we let these men and their modern 
imitators scratch our names out of the old family Bible and 
drive us out of the halls of our fathers, and leave us shiver- 
ing in the cold without a home where we may meet around 
the old hearth and the old Yule log? 

For forty years, this Las been our blunder; let us up and 
rectify it. Let us go up and keep the feast. If some of 
the family give us cold looks and treat us as the prodigal son 
who has wasted his substance with riotous living, let us not 
be driven from the ancestral halls and the graves of our 
fathers ; but, led by Virginia, the oldest of all the sisters, and 
"Carolina bright and fair," let us take our place at the old 
fireside and sing together the songs of "Auld Lang Syne." 



INDEX 



Abolition Party: rise of, .. 171. 

Abolition Societies 173 

Abbott, Lyman: 303 

Adams, Charles Francis: .. 

77, 84, 187, 301, 303 

Adams, John Quincy: 

150, 151, 184, 185, 187 

Alabama: secedes; 193 

debt of, 282 

Alamance: battle of, 40 

Alien and Sedition Acts, . . . 191 

Andros, Governor: 30 

Antietam: battle of, 244 

Anti-Federalists and Feder- 
alists: 156, 158 

Appomattox: surrender at, 251 

Arkansas: secedes, 193 

Articles of Confederation: 

80, 83 

Ashe, John: 59 

Atlanta: privations in, .... 232 
Aunt PMllis' Cabin: 101 

Bacon's Rebellion: 28, 29 

Bagley, Worth: 303 

Bee, Barnard E.: 254 

Berkeley, Sir William: ..27, 30 

Biglow Papers: 47 

"Black Friday": 279 

"Book Adoptions": 301 

Boone, Daniel: 71 

Booth, John Wilkes: ...271, 272 

[3 



Boston Massacre: 37, 38 

Boyd, Belle: 218,219 

Brown, John: 178, 179 

Buchanan, James: 193 

Buell, D. C: 200, 201 

Burgesses, House of: ..163, 164 
Burnside, A. E.: 245, 246 

Calhoun, John C: 158, 190, 191 

Campbell, William: 57, 58 

Carolina and Virginia: ...36-44 

Carpetbagger: 280, 284 

Carrington, Edward: 41 

Caswell, Richard : 61 

Cavalier and Puritan: 

119, 123, 147, 149 

Cedar Run, Battle of: 261 

Chamberlain, D. H. : 284 

Chancellorsville and Marye's 

Heights: 245, 247 

Christ in the Camp: ..207, 208 
Civilization, the Planter: 116-119 
Civil War (See War between 
the States.) 

Clark, George Rogers: 58 

Clarke, Elijah: 68 

Clay, Henry: 86, 175 

Cleveland, Benjamin: 60 

Cleveland, Grover: 302, 303 

Code Duello: 127 

Cold Harbor; battle of .... 250 
Commercial, Cincinnati: ... 186 
11] 



312 



HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 



Committees of Correspond- 
ence 40 

Committee of Safety: 43 

Common Sense: 47 

Confederate Candle: 219 

Confederate States: govern- 
ment organized, 193 

Confederate Veteran: 195 

Confederacy, Women of the 

213, 240 
Congress: the first American 24 

of 1765, 35, 36 

continental, 

36, 49, 80 

stamp act, 35, 36 

representation 

fixed 81, 82 

secession discuss- 
ed in, 183 

and Lincoln, 270, 271 
and Andrew John- 
son, ..273, 277, 278 
Constitution: remarks on, 20 
and the south 

78-86 
views of the 

150-158 
and "higher 

law," 172 

amendments 

to, ...278, 279 
Constitutional Convention 

of 1787: 79-82 

Conway, Cabal : 59 

Cooke, John Bsten: 25 

Cooke, John R.: 244, 245 

Cotton Gin: effect of the, 

171, 172 
Croghan, George: 88 



Cross Keys: battle of, 261 

Curry, J. L. M.: 101, 109 

Davidson, William: 61 

Davie, William R.: 60 

Davis, Jefferson: 94, 153, 156, 
175, 189, 193, 194,-258, 266, 271, 
272, 
Declaration of Independ- 
ence: passed, 49 

Declaration of Rights: 49 

Dixon, Thomas: 285 

Dred Scott Case: 177 

Dunmore, Lord: 30,46, 53 

Dwight, Dr. Timothy: 182, 184 

Eagle, Brooklyn: 303 

Education in the South: .. 

107, 108, 289 
Emancipation: in Virginia, 

163, 170 
the begin- 
ning of, . . 166 
growth of, 

169-172 
proc lama- 

tion, 271 

Embargo Act: 189, 190 

Encyclopedia Britan- 

nica: 101-103, 192, 229 

Estrangement: early cause 

of, ....146-158 
later causes 

of, ....158-162 
greatest 
cause of, 

162-181 
Ewell, Richard S.: 243 

Faneuil Hall: 38 



INDEX 



313 



Federalists: and anti-Feder- 
alists, 156-158 

Federal Ratio: 168 

Female College: the first in 

America, 25 

Fifteenth Amendment: ... 279 
Fiske, John: 24, 42, 71, 72, 

84, 148, 184, 185, 190 

Five Resolutions: 34, 35 

Florida: secedes, 193 

debt of, 282 

Fort Donelson: 263 

Fort Henry: 263 

Forrest, N. B.: ...240, 263, 285 
Fourteenth Amendment: . . 278 
Fredericksburg: battle of, . . 245 

Freedman's Bureau: 274 

Fremont, John C: 177 

Frletchie, Barbara: 213, 259, 260 
Fugitive Slave Laws: ..173, 191 

Gadsden, Christopher: ..35, 46 

Gambling: 129 

Geiger, Emily : 67, 68 

Gentlemen of the Old School: 144 
George III and his Friends: 

30-36 
Georgia: first female col- 
lege in, 25, 116 

and independ- 
ence, 47 

heroes of, 68-71 

in the Revolu- 
tion, 76 

in convention of 

1787, 79 

in Mexican War, 95 
cedes claims to 
territory 167 



Georgia: and emancipa- 
tion, 170 

secedes, 193 

"triumphal 
march" through 

230-232 
Gettysburg: battle of, ..247-249 

Gist, Mordecai : 52 

Gordon, John B.: 251 

Grady, Henry W.: 116 

Grant, U. S.: 123, 230, 250, 

251, 266, 267 
Great Bridge: battle of, ... 53 

Greeley, Horace: 186 

Greg, Percy: on Mexican 

War, 96 

on slavery, 

133, 134 

Habersham, Colonel: 43 

Hatton, Robert: 242 

Hamilton, Alexander: 20 

Hampton, Wade: 130, 242, 248 

Harnett, Cornelius: 62 

Harrison, William Henry: . . 87 
Hartford Convention : 

184, 185, 188, 190 

Hart, Nancy: 70, 71 

Harvey, Sir John: 27, 30 

Henry, Patrick: 

33, 34, 41, 58, 81 
Herald, New York: on se- 
cession, 186 

Heroes: and Heroines, ...51-72 
of the frontier, ..71-72 
homes that made, 

98-146 
Heroines in Homespun: 234-236 
"Higher Law, The": ...173-174 



314 



HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 



Hill, A. P.: 246, 251 

Hoar, George F.: 77 

"Honor System": 107, 108, 129 

Hooker, Joseph: 246 

House of Burgesses: 36, 38 

Houston, Sam: 88 

Howard, John Eager: ..51, 55 
Hundred Years Wrangle, 

The: 146-196 

Hunter, William: 61, 62 

Independence: 44-51 

Intolerable Acts: 39 

Jackson, Andrew: 87, 88 

Jackson, James : 69 

Jackson, T. J. : 

94, 178, 240. 253, 261 

Jackson, Mrs. T. J.: 255 

Jamestown: 22, 23 

Jamestown Exposition: 129 

Jasper, William: 69, 70 

Jefferson, Thomas: 

84, 85. 156, 158 
Johnson, Andrew: 

271-274, 277, 278 
Johnson, Richard M.: ...87, 88 
Johnston, Albert Sidney: 

189, 240, 241, 247, 262, 265, 
Johnston, Joseph E.: 

94, 189, 230, 232, 240, 266 

Kansas: and slavery ques- 
tion, 176 

Kentucky: and Dan'l Boone, 71 

in Mexican War, 193 

stays in Union, 193 

Kernstown: battle of, 260 

Ku Klux Klan: 285, 286 



LatanS, William: 243 

Lee, Fitzhugh: 18, 243, 302, 303 

Lee, Guy Carleton: 165 

Lee, Henry: 55, 56 

Lee, Robert E.: 56, 59, 94, 123, 

130, 178, 189, 194, 240-252, 266, 

267, 272 

Lee, Stephen D.: 243 

Lewis, Andrew: 53 

Lincoln, Abraham: 150, 156, 175, 

178, 180, 181, 192, 193, 196, 257, 

266, 267, 270, 271 

Lodge, Henry Cabot: 122 

London Company: 25 

Longstreet, James: ... .244, 257 
Louisiana: effect of purchase 

of, 172 

secedes, 193 

Lowell, James Russell: ... 77 

McClellan, George B.: ..241-245 

McDowell: battle of, 260 

McDowell, Grace Greenlee: 63 

McDowell, Joseph: 60 

Mcintosh, Lachlan: 68, 69 

McKelway, St. Clair; 303 

McKinley, William: 302 

Madison, James: 20, 84 

Manassas: battle of, 243 

Marion, Francis: 64, 66 

Marshall, John: 53, 157, 158 

Marye's Heights: and Chan- 

cellorsville, 245-247 

Maryland: and independ- 
ence, 47 

heroes of, . . 51, 52 
in the conven- 
tion of 1787, 79 
and slavery, . . 164 



INDEX 



315 



Maryland: cedes claim to 

territory, . . . 167 
stays in Union, 193 

Lee in, 244, 245 

"Maryland, My Maryland": 

244, 245 

Mason, George : 49 

Massachusetts : assembly dis- 
solved, 38 

and independence, 45 
and Virginia, ...75, 77 
and states rights, 

150, 152 
establishes slavery, 162 
abolition movement 

in, 166 

and secession, ..182-185 
and nullification, . . 191 

Maury, Dabney H.: 130 

Meade, George G.: 247 

Mecklenburg Declaration : 

41, 42, 44 

Mercer, C. F.: 163 

Mercer, Hugh: 57 

Mexican War: 90, 96 

Mississippi: in Mexican "War, 94 

secedes, 193 

Missouri: and slavery ques- 
tion, 172 

stays in Union, 193 

Mobile Cadets: 202 

Monroe Doctrine: 90 

Monroe, James: 90, 97 

Monuments and Histories: 

236-239 
Moore's Creek: battle of, . . 61 

Morgan, Daniel : 53-55 

Morgan, John H.: ..64, 263, 264 
Mosby, John S.: 64 



Motte, Rebecca: 68 

Moultrie, William: 63, 64 

Municipal Corruption: .... 300 

Nash, Francis : 6 J 

Navigation Laws: 31 

Negro Questions: and the 

constitution, 82 

in the South, ..291-296 
New England: and War of 

1812, 88-90 

in Mexican War, . . 95 

settlers in, 119, 120 

and states rights, 151 

slavery in, 162 

threatens secession, 172 
pioneers of seces- 
sion, 181-185 

nullification, ...189-192 

New Orleans: 233 

News and Courier: 227 

New York: and independ- 
ence, 48 

North Carolina: and Tryon, 30 

aids Boston, 39 

first blood spilt in, 40 
and Mecklenburg 

Declaration, . . 41, 42 
Provincial Congress 

of, 42 

and independence, 

45, 47 

heroes of, 59, 63 

University of, 60 

in convention of 

1787, 79 

adopts constitution, 83 
in Mexican War, . . 94 
and slavery 164 



316 



HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 



North Carolina: and eman- 
cipation, 170 

secedes, 193 

Norfolk: burned, 46 

North, The: in the revolu- 
tion, 73, 74 

in the War of 1812, 

88-90 
pronunciation in, . . 106 

and slavery, 127 

differences between 

the South and, 147-149 
and states rights, 

150-158 

slavery in, 162-164 

sells slaves, 165-167 

imports slaves, 166, 168 

nullifies, 189-192 

Northwest Territory: ...58, 167 

Nullification: defined, 156 

advoaated by Jeffer- 
son, 157, 158 

threatened in South 

Carolina, 159 

by the North, 161, 

162, 173, 189, 192 

"Ole Marster": 111-114 

"Ole Mistis": 114-116 

Omnibus Bill: 191 

"Order Number 28": 233 

Otis, James: 32 

Page, Thomas Nelson: 144 

Parsons Cause: 33, 34 

Pendleton, W. N.: 243 

Pennsylvania: and independ- 
ence, 48 

Personal Liberty Bills: 173, 191 



Pettigrew, J. J.: 242, 248 

Pickens, Andrew: 66, 67 

Pickett, George E.: 248 

Pinckney, Charles Cotes- 
worth: 157 

"Pirates" : 208-212 

Planter Civilization: ...116-119 
Planter, The "lazy": ...138-141 

Planters: 134-138 

Pocahontas: 24 

Point Pleasant: battle of, .. 52 

Polk, Thomas: 42 

Pope, John: 243 

Port Republic: battle of, .. 261 

Press, Philadelphia: 303 

Prisons: in the North, 127 

in the South, .... 128 
Private Soldier, The: and 

the Sailor 197-212 

Puritan and Cavalier: 

119-123; 147-149 

Quakers: petition of, 167 

Quartering Act: 37 

Quincy, Josiah: ..155, 183, 184 

Race Problem: 291-296 

Randolph, Edmund: 79 

Randolph, John: 152 

Randolph, Peyton: 35 

Rawle, William: 189 

Rawlings, Moses: 52 

Rebellion, Bacon's: 28, 29 

Rebellion: Records of the, 

194, 211 

Reconstruction : 287-291 

Recruiting Officer: 216, 217 

Redempti oners: 165 

Religious Liberty: 61, 85 



INDEX 



317 



Revolutionary War: troops 

and battles, 72, 74 

Rhode Island: and religious 

freedom, 50 

Richmond Blues: 202 

Roanoke Island: 23 

Roanoke Island, St. Augus- 
tine, and Jamestown: ..21-26 

Robertson, James: 45, 71 

Rockbridge Artillery: ..... 206 
Roosevelt, Theodore: "45, 71, 

72, 83, 95, 122, 159, 201, 202 
Rutherford, Griffith: 61 

Sailors: in the War of 1812, 

89, 90 
Sailor, The: and the private 

Soldier, 197-212 

St. Augustine: 22 

St. John's Church : 41 

Sansom, Emma: 218 

Scalawag: 280-284 

Schoolmarm in Tradition: 

275-277 

Secession: in 1787, 83 

and Texas, 91 

first speech in con- 
gress on, 155 

early believers in, 156 
threatened by New 

England, 172 

by the South, ..179, 180 
the right of, ...181-192 
Northern advocates 

of, 182-189 

threatened by Mas- 
sachusetts, 185 

taught at West 
Point, 188, 189 



Secession: name of the war 

of, 195 

doctrine abandoned, 269 

Semmes, Raphael: 209 

Seven Days' Battles; ...241-242 

Seymour, Horatio: 184, 185 

Sharpsburg, battle of; .... 244 

"Sheridan's Ride": 231 

Sherman, W. T.: 230 

Shiloh and its Heroes: 262-265 

Shiloh: battle of, 264 

"Sic Semper Tyrannis": ..27-36 

Simms, William Gilmore: .. 221 

Slavery: and Texas, 92, 93, 160 

in the North, ... 127 

in the South, 131-134 

and religion, 143, 

168, 169 
cause of war, . . . 161 
abolished in the 

North, 161 

established by 

Massachusetts,.. 162 
in the North and 

the South,.. 162-164 
and Virginia, 

163, 164, 166 
and Federal ratio, 168 
abolition of, .... 169 
moral side of, ..171 
and Missouri Com- 
promise, 172 

and California, 

175, 176 
extinguished by 

war, 196 

surrendered by 

South 269 

Slaves: treatment of, 134-138 



318 



HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 



Slaves: number of, 164 

insurrections of,165, 166 

runaway, 168 

Slave Trade: 164, 166, 167 

Smith, Goldwin: on seces- 
sion, 188 

Smith, John: 24 

Smith, Kirby E.: 266 

Smallwood, William: 51 

South Carolina: and the con- 
gress of 1765, ..35, 36 

aids Boston, 39 

provincial Congress 

of, 44, 45 

and independence, 

46-48 

heroes of, 63-68 

in the Revolution, 

73, 76 
in convention of 

1787, 79 

in Mexican War, . . 94 

divorce in, 120 

and states rights, . . 152 
and nullification, . . 159 

and slavery, ..163, 164 
threatens nullifica- 
tion, 190, 192 

secedes, 193 

Sherman's March 

through, 231 

during reconstruc- 
tion, 283, 284 

South, The: in olden days, 

15-97 

no solid, 17-19 

and the constitution 
of 1787, 20 



South, The: and continental 

congress, 36 

in the Revolution, 51-78 
and the constitution, 

78-86 
and the Union, ....86-97 
and Texas, ..92, 93, 96 
literature unjust to, 

98-104 
English of, ....105, 106 
the ante-bellum, .... Ill 

in 1860, 116, 117 

yeomanry of, ..123, 126 
education in, ..125, 126 

slavery in 131-134 

ill-feeling towards 

the North, 147-150 

and states rights, 150-158 
outvoted in Congress, 160 

and slaves, 162-164 

secedes, 179 

war poets of, ..222, 223 
since the war, ...266-304 
Southern Literary Messen- 
ger: 101 

Stamp Act: 34, 36, 37 

Stamp Act Congress: ...35, 36 
"Starvation Parties": ..223-225 

States Rights: 150-158 

Stephens, Alex. H.: 193, 199 

"Stonewall": (See Jackson, 
T. J.) 

Stowe, Mrs. H. B 77, 176 

Stuart, J. E. B.: 

178, 242, 246, 247, 251 

Sumter, Fort: 67 

Sumter, Thomas: 66 

Taney, Roger B.: 177 



INDEX ' 



319 



Tariff: 158, 159 

"Taxation without Represen- 
tation": 30-33 

Taylor, Richard: 257, 266 

Tea Parties: Boston, ...38, 39 

Annapolis 39 

Charleston, 39 

Tennessee; settled by Rob- 
ertson, 45, 71 

Telfair, Edward: 43 

Texas: and Mexico, ....91, 92 

and slavery, 92 

secedes, 193 

the hero of, 262, 263 

Text-books : misstatements 

in 132, 133 

Thirteenth Amendment: . . 278 

Townshend Acts: 37 

ITryon, Gov. : 30 

Tyler, John: 92, 163 

Tyler, Lyon G.: 163 

Uncle Tom's Cabin: 47, 101, 

132, 135, 138, 142-144, 176 
"Underground Railroad": .. 173 
Underwood Convention: ... 286 
Union: created by states, 83-86 
maintained and ex- 
panded by South, . . 86-97 

love for the, 301-304 

University of Virginia: 108, 206 

Valley Campaign: 260, 261 

Virginia: and Five Resolu- 
tions, 34, 35 

and Carolina, ..36, 44 
and committees of 

correspondence, . . 40 
and independence, 

46, 47, 48 



Virginia: and Bill of Rights, 49 

heroes, 52-59 

in convention of 

1787 79 

and Connecticut, .. 82 
settled by Cavaliers, 

120, 121 
aristocrats in, 124, 125 

and her debt 129 

and states rights, 

152, 154 

slavery in, 162, 163 

cedes Northwest 

Territory, 167 

constitutional con- 
vention of 1829, . 170 
and Massachusetts, 

75, 77 
and nullification, 

191, 192 

secedes, 193 

atrocities in, 231 

Underwood Consti- 
tution, 286 

Virginia: and Monitor: 209-212 
Virginia and Kentucky Res- 
olutions : 191 

Virginia Military Institute: 

231, 241, 254 

War between the States: be- 
fore the, 15-17 

causes: 146, 150 

slavery question, . . 161 
name adopted, .... 19t> 
cost of, 267 

"War of 1812: 86-90, 306 

"War Poets: 222,223 

Washington Artillery: 

202, 244, 246 



320 



HALF-HOURS IN SOUTHERN HISTORY 



Washington, George: 

39, 59, 85, 157, 257 
Washington, William: ..55, 56 
Webster, Daniel: denounced 

by Whittier, 174 

Westmoreland Club: 298 

West Point: secession taught 

at, 188, 189 

Wheeler, Joseph: 264 

Wilderness: battle of the, 

250, 251 



William and Mary College: 

26, 107, 206, 231 
Williams, Otho Holland: .. 52 

Williams, Roger: 50 

Wilmer, Bishop R. H.: 

131, 132, 142, 143 

Winchester: battle of, 261 

Women of the Confederacy: 

213-240 

Woodford, William: 53 

Wyatt, Sir Francis: 25 



i\fH lb 1907 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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